SOARING TO SUCCESS?

Universal is betting big on the live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon

- ASHLEY SPENCER

In 2020, Dean DeBlois publicly blasted live-action remakes of animated films as "lazy" studio endeavours.

The director who, along with Chris Sanders, had made the 2002 Disney animated Lilo & Stitch and the 2010 DreamWorks Animation release How To Train Your Dragon, said that he viewed such remakes as "a missed opportunity to put something original into the world".

Then, two years later, DeBlois received a call from Universal Pictures President Peter Cramer asking if he'd be interested in directing a live-action version of How To Train Your Dragon.

"At the expense of seeming like a hypocrite, I thought, well, I'm either going to sit here and pout and watch somebody else do it," DeBlois said in a video interview with The New York Times, "or I could jump in and shoulder the blame or help to change the narrative".

Now, as the live-action Dragon arrived in theatres last week, DeBlois is enthusiastically attached to the type of movie he formerly criticised.

A lot could have gone wrong: DeBlois had never made a live-action feature before Universal put him in charge of the US$150 million (4.9 billion baht) remake, and the genre as a whole is facing increased scepticism from audiences and studios alike. (Disney reportedly put its Tangled remake on hold indefinitely in the wake of underwhelming box office returns for Snow White this spring.)

Yet, so pleased were the Universal executives after seeing a cut of the new Dragon, Cramer said, that they rushed to greenlight a live-action adaptation of How To Train Your Dragon 2, to be directed and written by DeBlois and released in theatres in 2027.

"Dean's execution of it, for us, was A-plus, and that's really the thing that gives us the confidence to keep going," Cramer said.