Summary

Director Dean DeBlois talks to Steve Weintraub about the upcoming How to Train Your Dragon movie.

In taking on such an ambitious project, DeBlois and his team did things never done before.

DeBlois is protective of the franchise he helped create from Cressida Cowell’s story.

After two years of waiting since the 2023 announcement of the movie being in development, the live-action How to Train Your Dragon is finally about to arrive. Hailing from director Dean DeBlois, who stays on board following the animated adventures, the film sees The Black Phone’s Mason Thames join as Hiccup, Nico Parker (The Last of Us) as Astrid, and Hollywood veteran Gerard Butler reprise his role as Stoick the Vast. How to Train Your Dragon follows the story of Hiccup, a young Viking whose strengths lie not in dragon slaying like his fellow Vikings, but in thoughtfulness and creation. DeBlois, who calls himself “protective” over the on-screen adaptations, brings to life the heartwarming tale of a misfit boy and his relationship with Toothless, an elusive Night Fury dragon, as they try to bridge the worlds of dragon and man. Following early reviews that saw Collider’s Maggie Lovitt give the movie a huge 9/10, and critics on Rotten Tomatoes award the film a solid Tomatometer score, excitement surely couldn’t be higher. In anticipation of the live-action release, Collider’s Steve Weintraub sat with director DeBlois to discuss all things How to Train Your Dragon, including the movie’s relationship with IMAX and the future of the franchise, why the daytime VFX look so good, and gives an update on the live-action Micronauts movie.
‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Is Best Experienced in IMAX

“You really get hit with the full maximum impact of what’s going on.”

COLLIDER: So I’m going to say that you didn’t screw up. You did a fantastic job. Seriously, congrats. DEAN DEBLOIS: Thank you. That’s a relief. [Laughs] I think people are going to love it. I have so many questions, but I have a few things before we get into the movie. I’m obsessed with getting more people to see movies in movie theaters. So I’m curious, do you have a favorite movie theater? DEBLOIS: Well, I suppose my favorite movie theater is any IMAX screen. I will always go to an IMAX if it’s being presented as such, because I love being bombarded by the format. You said the right answer: any IMAX screen. But I will admit, as a huge IMAX fan, some screens are better than others. But this movie specifically, it’s full screen IMAX. How much of the movie is full screen? DEBLOIS: We have almost an hour out of our two-hour runtime — it might even be more than an hour. Anything that is sort of action-immersive. We kept the intimate dialogue scenes in 2.39 scope, but then we blew it open for all the training scenes, the flying scenes, the battle scenes. It’s where you really get hit with the full maximum impact of what’s going on.
Crafting ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Broke Filmmaking Boundaries

“That was something that hadn’t been done before.”

Image via Universal Pictures

If I’m not mistaken, I believe this is the first time you’ve directed a big live-action movie like this. So you’ve directed a lot of animation, and I’m so curious. What did you learn making your first live-action film that was unexpected, or things that were surprising to learn about the process? DEBLOIS: I’ve been prepping myself for years, just watching ‘behind-the-scenes making-of’ documentaries and Project Green Light and all that. So I knew the process, and I knew that when it came to principal photography, you had to be super-prepared because the decisions happen in a hurry and you had to be very committal. The thing that I wasn’t quite prepared for was how much magic happens when you entrust the scene to actors and let them play out their own cadence, and new lines might come in, other lines might disappear. There’s sort of this dance of all of the body language as well, in the silences. It’s very different to animation where we craft the performance. We literally cut up lines to make our favorite line and then put it in the hands of the animators. But this is sort of, you prep and you prep, and then you allow yourself to be surprised. One of the things that I loved was the way you shot the flying sequences. Bill Pope is your cinematographer, and from what I understand, you were using practical stuff with gimbals, and it looked fantastic. Can you talk about the way you guys shot the flying sequences? DEBLOIS: The flying sequences, we pushed them all to the end of the schedule, where we were in a blue screen stage for about a month. And yes, they had built six-axis gimbals, which were about 10 feet tall. But on top of those, they built dragon busts, which were essentially chest, neck, and head fully articulated, and that could be controlled by the animation that had already previously been done for flight cycles, or it could be done live with joysticks. So, when you had someone like Mason Thames sitting in his saddle on top of the Toothless buck, on top of a gimbal 15 feet in the air, it meant that every movement that the dragon did — if it was diving or ascending or rolling or pitching — Mason would move with it like a jockey on a horse, and it gave it very convincing movement that could then be applied to the animation. And that was something that hadn’t been done before.

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One of the things that I commend you guys on is that daylight VFX shots are tricky, because you really have to get the lighting right, otherwise it looks horrible, but this looks fantastic. Talk a little bit about pulling off daylight VFX shots and making it look believable. DEBLOIS: The thing we learned about daylight VFX is shoot it outside, shoot it in a parking lot. The light is going to be so much better because you’re getting the ambient, broad spread of the light. When you have to do it on a stage like we did with the gimbal, it’s really tricky. Because of the controlled environment, we were forced to do that in blue screen. They lit it as best they could, but there was so much adjustment we had to do afterward in terms of playing with the depth of field, with the atmosphere, or with taking down highlights or pushing highlights. It’s incredibly difficult to make it marry. And I’m glad that you’ve spotted that, because hats off to the wizards at Framestore for their patience and dedication to making those shots actually work.
Dean DeBlois is “Protective” Over ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ and Sees Himself Involved Indefinitely

“Will I be 85 years old and still making How to Train Your Dragon movies?”

Generally, I speak to people, and they’re like, “Well, we hope to make a sequel,” but you’re in the rare boat of the studio fully believing in it and saying, “Let’s make a sequel.” If you get to do three, do you envision yourself helming all of these? DEBLOIS: I try not to make plans in my future because it never works out the way I planned for it. Will I be 85 years old and still making How to Train Your Dragon movies? [Laughs] I don’t know. I do have other aspirations. But again, I’m so protective of it. I don’t want to see somebody else’s version. No, I really want your versions of these movies. One thing I am wondering is, because the cast is going to get older, in your ideal world, would it be every other year, one of these is coming out in theaters to be able to get through it, and also keep the audience invested? DEBLOIS: Sure. I mean, we did the animated movie as a trilogy because, my pitch from the discussion, the first discussion of a sequel, my pitch was let’s do three movies so we can do a three-act coming of age, and we end in the place where Cressida Cowell’s books began, which is Hiccup as an adult, reflecting back on a time when there were dragons. I loved the mystery, and it was poignant, so that became a goal. But in live-action, sure. I mean, the story could continue. It doesn’t have to stop where it stops, but there is something kind of nice about it. Those are the movies I love, whether it’s E.T. or Harold and Maude or Titanic, even. Stories of characters coming together for a moment in time and being forever changed when they part ways continue to be a theme for me that I hold dear, and I wanted to apply to this.
Dean DeBlois Gives an Update on the Live-Action ‘Micronauts’ Movie

“I did a script.”

Image via Universal Pictures

Whatever happened with your live-action Micronauts movie? DEBLOIS: Micronauts just got stalled. It got stalled because there’s been a changing of hands. So, Hasbro had their own film division; Paramount was involved. They then partnered with E1 and now they’re back to having their own film division. So in all of those exchanges, everybody has different ideas of what a Micronauts movie should be. And so it’s just it continues to sort of move along slowly. Is it one of these things where you actually did the script and got far along, or was it just in its infancy? DEBLOIS: I did a script, but it changed as production companies changed hands. So, there were new ambitions and new ideas of what the movie should be. I continue to ride that slow train of development just to see where everyone aligns. How to Train Your Dragon is now playing in theaters and IMAX.

How to Train Your Dragon

Release Date

June 13, 2025

Runtime

116 Minutes

Director

Dean DeBlois

Writers

Dean DeBlois

Franchise(s)

How to Train Your Dragon

Mason Thames

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

Nico Parker

Astrid Hofferson

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