“Dragon” Director On Live-Action Changes

Following the new trailer released earlier this week, filmmaker Dean DeBlois has spoken some more about the upcoming live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” film and just how loyal it is to the original DreamWorks Animation classic.

DeBlois directed the original 2010 animated film and so with his return here, he tells The Wrap that he’s been able to make adjustments to the story with personalities and relationships being more fleshed out here because they have the luxury of time.

That said, he’s also very well aware of what about the original film worked and had no intention of changing things up much for fans of it. Though there might be some additional depth, don’t imagine a reinvention or reimagining here. As he explains:

“I myself am not a huge fan of the animation-to-live-action trend. Universal wanted to revisit this story. It’s like, ‘We’re going to do it. Let’s try to do it right.

That first movie was made in a rush, and I’m super proud of it, but there are things that we could have done even better. My attitude was, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We still had time and money to go a little deeper with characters, to enrich the experience, to make the action scenes, the flying, more visceral, more immersive, but also make the character relationships a little richer and deeper.”

Hopefully, the experience would be something that echoes to the familiarity and the nostalgia of the first movie, but with depth. There are many ways we could have gone, but that’s the way that felt most comfortable to me, because I am really proud of that animated movie.”

He adds one character who obviously gets more depth is Astrid, and we’ll better “understand where she’s coming from, what she wants, her attitude toward Hiccup as being this person of privilege, whereas she’s had to work her way up.”

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