This is Berk (live-action version.)
We’re about to see a lot of first looks at the upcoming 2025 movies that will hold our minds and hearts captive with imagination. What we know about How to Train Your Dragon’s live-action remake has that picture squarely poised to be one such title, and we now have a teaser for director Dean DeBlois’ efforts to translate the animated hit he helped created. And since the marketing folks included the one scene I needed to convince me this remake will work, I’m pretty convinced that opinion will hold up.
Our first trailer didn’t show off much of the How to Train Your Dragon’s cast, as the only prominent humans we really got to focus on were Gerard Butler’s Stoick the Vast, Nick Frost’s Gobber the Belch, and Mason Thames Toothless the…boy. Hey, this is the first movie in the Dragon series, and we’re back to seeing our young rider striking it out to become the hero we know he’ll turn out to be.
Which leads us to the one scene that makes this all work. As you may have guessed, we’ve got our first look at the photo realistic Toothless, which was a given no matter how you stretch it. However, we get to see the iconic moment where Hiccup decides to spare the Night Fury’s life, and instead makes himself a friend.
Is anyone else crying in here? Seriously, that is the moment that the entire How to Train Your Dragon universe pivots on. And history proves this notion to be correct, as we happened to see this lovely scene in the original marketing for the 2010 original. As proof, take a look at this trailer for the DreamWorks Animation classic:
The realm of upcoming kids movies in 2025 is going to be quite competitive, as we also have the likes of Paddington in Peru looking to milk people’s tear ducts of their precious tears. And just by the mere look of How to Train Your Dragon, we’re not just copying the magic of the animated movies in live action.
What we’ve been shown here is visually sweeping and gorgeous, and I’m curious about how the finished product will work in more of the color that its CGI counterpart possessed. Also, with Nick Frost hyping Mason Thames and his comedic prowess, I can’t wait to see how his awkward Hiccup fares against Nico Parker’s Astrid.
At any rate, even with my hopes for How to Train Your Dragon firmly held, I can say that I’m still pretty confident we’re seeing something beautiful taking shape. I’d still hope DreamWorks’s live-action aspirations veer away from remakes and more towards unrealized projects finally having that moment in the production sun. But if this means we’re going to get equally enthralling Dragon remakes of the rest of the series (and maybe an expansion using some of the streaming series/source material lore), then I’ll have my helmet ready for when that time comes.
Thankfully we all have time to prepare ourselves as How to Train Your Dragon’s new reinvention takes to the skies, only in theaters, on June 13, 2024. If you’re looking to return to the past glories of the original animated film, you can do that pretty easily. Just open up your Hulu subscription, and take flight. Just be sure you have tissues, as you’re going to need them!