How to Train Your Dragon 2025 remake: Dean DeBlois transformed animated classic to live-action

Dean DeBlois is an animator so he was never going to be the first person to join the live-action remake cheer squad.

“We’ve been bombarded by them over the last decade and not all of them, in fact, the rare few are, of high quality enough to change the conversation,” he told The Nightly. “So, our film is coming out right in the midst of that conversation of live action remakes and are we done with them, are they necessary?

“I don’t really like seeing these reinventions when they somehow managed to miss the point or lose the soul of the thing in translation.”

How did DeBlois find himself the writer and director of the live-action How to Train Your Dragon remake?

It both came out of the blue and dates back more than 15 years.

With Chris Sanders, DeBlois was the co-director and co-writer of the 2010 animated film, adapted from Cressida Cowell’s books about an underdog Viking boy named Hiccup and his dragon, Toothless. It was a vivid universe about rising above old grudges, learning to be a leader and the bond between man and animal.

It also had very cool dragons.

The film was a huge success and spawned a slate of short films, three animated series and two feature sequels, the latter of which DeBlois took over after Sanders went off to make The Croods.

The movie trilogy was DeBlois’s baby, but after he wrapped the final film, which was released in 2019, he thought he’d drawn a line under this world, and started setting up new projects at different studios.

“Then I got a call from Universal saying that they were kicking the tyres on this idea of bringing How to Train Your Dragon to live action,” he recalled. “My immediate response was, ‘I don’t want to see someone else’s version of this’.

“So, protectively and selfishly, I said, ‘If you’re going to do it, I would like to be the one to write and direct it’. In part because I am not a big fan of these remakes, they often lose the heart and soul of the original, I wanted to make sure that would be preserved or die trying.”

The gauntlet was set, and DeBlois knew he was now going to have to measure up where he thought others had been short.

Following a brief from the studio that they wanted essentially the story, characters and core of the animated movie, the resulting film is one that is faithful but also expanded upon his own work.

“Where could we be additive? Where do we retain what really works about the original story but then give it more mythology, expand on the characters that were perhaps underserved in that original movie, deepen the relationships, bring a maturity to the whole thing,” he explained.

“All the while, revising action scenes with more of a kinetic, visceral, live-action approach, and delivering photo-real dragons full of personality.”

But not too real, because How to Train Your Dragon wouldn’t be that if a CGI Toothless, the story’s Night Fury with its rounded, expressive eyes, bulbous head and paw-like feet, didn’t match his animated form.

DeBlois said they played around with Toothless’s look but found the more they deviated, for example when they changed his face to look more like a “realistic” creature, the less he seemed like Toothless.

Nailing the look was crucial because the success of the franchise was underpinned by the audience relating to the companionship between Hiccup and Toothless. If you found yourself uncontrollably weeping in the third How to Train Your Dragon animation when the two had to say goodbye, it was all intentional.

“Particularly with Toothless, we wanted to trigger all of those feelings in the audience of, ‘Oh, that’s just like my cat or that’s just like my dog’. We spent a lot of time on YouTube watching funny dog and cat videos and cherry picking our favourite ones, and trying to find moments in the story where we could organically integrate them,” he explained.

Think, when the dragons can be tamed by a chin scratch.

“If you have a pet, hopefully you see them reflected in these dragons. Presenting Toothless as the most feared dragon in their entire mythology only defined that, yes, he’s ferocious, but he’s also approachable and vulnerable. We want him to be both ferocious and cuddly.”

It’s only effective because audiences also know that the bond between themselves and their pets are not forever. The stakes are real, so the tears are real.

“That’s the whole idea of love and loss is something I wrestle with all the time,” DeBlois said. “I started this movie, this specific live-action retelling, with a pack of three dogs, and I’m down to one now and she’s 12. She’s a 12-year-old French bulldog, so I know the time is fleeting and that relationship is so powerful, the human-animal relationship.

“It’s a gift but it comes with pain for sure.”

Before DeBlois became acquainted with Toothless and Hiccup, he had been Sanders’ co-writer and co-director on another animated film which has just been remade in live-action: Lilo and Stitch. The remake has, to date, earnt $US627 million globally.

He hasn’t seen the new version, and doesn’t know if it’s managed to retain what made the 2002 original special.

“All the more reason for me to feel protective of How to Train Your Dragon, because I know I can control that, and I know that at the end of the day, if it falls short of those qualities that the animated film had earnt, then I have to accept the blame for it.

“It’s putting my convictions to the test to be able to put How to Train Your Dragon out there as the writer and director of the animated trilogy as well.”

How to Train Your Dragon is in cinemas on June 12