After spending the better part of a decade flying high with Toothless and Hiccup, How to Train Your Dragon director Dean DeBlois is preparing to move on to a very different big screen universe. Paramount is currently developing a new film based on the Micronauts toy line from Hasbro, and it the studio has now tapped DeBlois to take over the project going forward. DeBlois will write and direct Micronauts, which will be his first foray into the world of live-action.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount has hired DeBlois to both write and direct the Micronauts film adaptation, with the hopes that it can find success similar to Transformers and G.I. Joe. Brian Goldner, Stephen Davis, and Greg Mooradian are all going to be producing Micronauts as a part of the company’s film production wing, AllSpark Pictures (an obvious nod to Transformers).
Videos by ComicBook.com
The Micronauts toys were a line of action figures that were produced by Mego in the 1970s, based on the Japanese Microman line. In addition to the toys themselves, Micronauts also had a series of Marvel Comics that put together an overall storyline for the franchise.
In the comics, there was a Microverse that linked together different worlds and was ruled by a dictator named Baron Karza. A group of ragtag characters join forces to create a resistance and take the Baron down, restoring order to the Microverse. Paramount and Hasbro are reportedly looking to give the franchise a family-friendly tone, and the hope is that DeBlois can bring that over from the How to Train Your Dragon films.
DeBlois co-directed Lilo & Stitch for Disney in 2002, followed by his overseeing of the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. He co-directed the first film in the series with Chris Sanders and proceeded to direct the other two on his own. The How to Train Your Dragon films have grossed more than $1.6 billion since 2010, in addition to three Academy Award nominations.
Paramount has dated the Micronauts movie for a June 4, 2021 release.
