Live-Action How to Train Your Dragon Movie in the Works

The journey of Hiccup and Toothless is headed into live-action. On Wednesday, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that a live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie is in the works at Universal Pictures. The project will be written, directed, and produced by Dean DeBlois, who will be making his live-action debut after spearheading much of the animated franchise. Marc Platt, whose work includes Legally Blonde and the studio's upcoming Wicked movie, will be producing. The live-action How to Train Your Dragon even already has a release date — March 14, 2025. The film is reportedly already in its casting process.

This will be the first instance of an animated DreamWorks franchise being carried over into live-action. Loosely based on the books of Cressida Cowell, the How to Train Your Dragon franchise spanned three films from 2010 to 2019, which starred Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrera, and Craig Ferguson. It also led to multiple short films and television spinoffs including DreamWorks Dragons, DreamWorks Dragons: Rescue Rider, and DreamWorks Dragons: The Nine Realms.

Will there be a How to Train Your Dragon reboot?

As DeBlois explained in 2019, the ideal way to continue the franchise in animation would be to set it in a wildly different era.

"We definitely wanted it to feel hopeful but also conclusive," DeBlois said at the time. "And I think what we tried to do was deliver a satisfying ending that ultimately meant that Hiccup and Toothless would go their separate ways, but also reassure the audience it was for the best, that we see them thrive in their adulthood. For me it's a satisfying end, and that was the intention, to really kind of bring it back to the disappearance of dragons and having them kind of fall away into legend, but we the audience kind of know they're still around. And beyond that, I don't own the franchise, so I think if Dreamworks wanted to open it up again at some point, I would hope that it a different timeline, different characters, with the Hiccup/Toothless story remained intact."

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As mentioned above, the live-action How to Train Your Dragon is set to be released in theaters on March 14, 2025.