How To Train Your Dragon: Dean DeBlois Breaks Down The Trailer

Dean DeBlois knows a thing or two about dragons. And, yes, how to train them. Back in 2015, he directed DreamWorks’ beloved coming-of-age fantasy How To Train Your Dragon alongside Chris Sanders, beginning the tale of friendship between Viking boy Hiccup and his Night Fury dragon pal Toothless – one that DeBlois continued into 2014’s How To Train Your Dragon 2, before concluding in 2018’s How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. So, when Universal mooted a live-action remake of the first film in the saga, they went to the man who knew the story best – and rather than pass it on to another filmmaker, he felt there was more to explore.

“Chris Sanders and I were brought in as a replacement writer and director team on that first film,” DeBlois tells Empire at the release of the How To Train Your Dragon trailer. “We had 15 months to rewrite and push the movie through production. Many of our ambitions had to be tabled as we were racing to the finish, and that live-action aesthetic that we were chasing by bringing Roger Deakins into the mix was certainly implemented, but not to its full extent.” Now, in all-out live-action, DeBlois and his team can “present dragons with full credibility”, he says. Get ready to feel the flames.

Here's what DeBlois told Empire about the new trailer.

Hello, Hiccup

Across the original animated trilogy, Hiccup was voiced by Jay Baruschel. Here, he’s embodied by Mason Thames, cast when he was just 15 years old, after leading Scott Derrickson’s horror drama The Black Phone. “I was really taken with his performance,” says DeBlois of that film, “and wondered if he had any comedic chops, or if he could play whimsy.” Come audition time, Thames had the goods. “Immediately he embodied this kind of awkward, self-deprecating, vulnerable character that brought Hiccup to life – not in a Jay Baruschel way, but in his own way that felt equally Hiccup.”

Astrid in action

The other pivotal human role? Astrid, whose budding romance with Hiccup forms the backbone of the trilogy. Here, she’s played by Nico Parker – who might not look identical to the animated character, but captured her perfectly in DeBlois’ eyes. “There's been some criticism of, ‘Well, why didn't you find an Astrid who looked like her animated counterpart?’,” he acknowledges. “We did – we found several of them. But Nico came in and blew our socks off with how she tapped into the essence of who Astrid was. She could deliver really harsh dialogue in a way that felt like a school sports team captain – commanding and strong, but holding herself to a very high standard, and therefore demanding that others rise to that standard.”

Dragon designs

In the animated films, the looks of the dragons are highly stylised – with accentuated body parts, wild colours, and overt personalities. Here, the dragons all still have their own distinct look and feel, but with a more realistic twist. “It's been a very iterative process,” says DeBlois, “almost working backward, if we treat the animated movie as though it came after the live-action one.” Expect a real dragon menagerie as a result. “We could delve further into the animal references that we had assigned to each dragon,” says DeBlois of this version. “One’s a serpentine crocodile, one's a curious tropical bird, one is a fussy walrus, one is a black panther.” Bagsy riding the fussy walrus.

True-to-life Toothless

One dragon remains firmly unchanged, though: Toothless, the supposedly fearsome Night Fury who becomes Hiccup’s closest pal. His features here are as soft and round as they were in animation. “Toothless has these giant eyes that just don't occur anywhere in nature, not even on a blue whale. No creature has eyes that big – but when we started making them smaller, suddenly it stopped feeling like Toothless,” explains DeBlois. “Personality and charm and everything went out the window.” Instead, textural elements were deployed to ensure Toothless still fits into this live-action world.

First encounter

In a shot directly taken from the animated film, Hiccup reaches out to Toothless, and finds that he’s not the fearsome beast his people are so afraid of. “I circled, from the start, certain moments that were iconic to not just the first film, but the entire franchise, that being one of them,” the director says. “And so I said, ‘Let's do our best to recreate that, shot for shot, every aspect of it, as best we can.” Away from those pivotal moments, there’s more wiggle room to try something new. “In other places, let's explore – follow character relationships a little deeper, push into the kinetic, visceral quality of flying.” Speaking of which…

Full flight

Arguably the highlight of the first animated film is the ‘Test Flight’ sequence, in which Hiccup and Toothless take to the skies together for the first time. DeBlois hopes to recapture the visceral thrills and emotional release in a new medium, shooting around the Faroe Islands. “It's just a land of immense, jaw dropping coastlines and striking visuals that seem almost unreal,” says the director. “We just shot the hell out of those of those coastlines, and those canyons and sea stacks, and the turbulent seas, and really got a sense of what it is to fly over that.” Get ready for an all-new vantage point on the sequence you know. “We can adjust all those shots in such a way that it feels like a live cameraman was over-shooting, or losing track of Hiccup, trying to shoot through clouds to find them, or getting out of the way of rocky sea stacks and sea birds,” DeBlois teases. Get ready to feel the spray.

Pure scores

Part of the magic of ‘Test Flight’ is John Powell’s iconic score – and he’s back to provide more oomph to those original themes. “Where we might have been erring on the side of whimsical, we can now err on the side of big fantasy, adventure, excitement,” the filmmaker says. “Everything that you love about John's score will be present in this new one, and just give an even bigger breadth to support the visuals.”

Big bad

Glimpsed in the trailer is a gigantic mega-dragon, who’ll be familiar to fans of the original: the terrifying Red Death. “That was an opportunity to redesign what was a bit of a rushed design in the animated movie,” DeBlois enthuses. “She's the queen of this nest, she's the alpha, she's cannibalistic, and a tyrant. We could really lean into this creature that lives in a volcanic caldera and has a bit of its colouring and texture and temperament.” You will, he promises, believe such a titan can fly. “To see that thing crawl out and fly, it's a phenomenal challenge to make it believable in a live-action context,” DeBlois admits. “We're trying to hold ourselves to a standard of, there should not be a single shot in this movie that breaks the spell, and Framestore are really delivering.” Prepare for some real magic.

How To Train Your Dragon comes to UK cinemas on 13 June.