It appears the world of Dreamworks is taking a page from Disney as NBCUniversal has announced a Live-Action Remake of the popular 2010 film How To Train Your Dragon. Director and producer Dean DeBlois, who worked on the original animated trilogy, will be heading up the project.



The release is currently set for a 2025 Christmas release which matches up with the opening of Universal Studio Orlando’s Epic Universe expansion. One of the lands featured within is themed after How To Train Your Dragon, so Universal will want something fresh in people’s minds to help make the land more popular.

Ever since 2010 Disney has been relying heavily on Live-Action Remakes of their classic animated films to varying degrees of success. Some going on to make over $1 Billion at the global box office, despite many of the films being rather inferior to their animated counterparts.

The How To Train Your Dragon franchise began in 2010 and was based on the book series of the same name by Cressida Cowell. The film follows a young boy in a Viking village who wants to slay a dragon. When he finds that he cannot kill a dragon his whole outlook on life changes. He befriends a dragon who he calls Toothless and learns about the world of dragons through him. An unbreakable friendship is formed and later the war between the dragons and Vikings is ended.



The franchise went on to have two sequels, one in 2014 and one in 2019, various shorts, a stage musical as well as three television series (One on Cartoon Network and two on Netflix). The series is considered to be Dreamworks’ equivalent to Toy Story in terms of popularity and is one of their top franchises alongside Shrek and Kung Fu Panda.



With NBCUniversal now seeing Live-Action Remakes as profitable what other Dreamworks IPs do you think they’ll try next? Road to El Dorado? Prince of Egypt? Maybe even Illumination films like Despicable Me? We’ve just opened up a whole new can of worms.

Source: Variety