For How to Train Your Dragon book series author Cressida Cowell, seeing the animated world based on her best-selling novels transform into live-action was nothing short of magical. Walking through the village of Berk or into the blacksmith’s forge was like stepping into a dream,” Cowell says. “The attention to detail—the wear on the tools, the weathered wood of the buildings—made everything feel alive. It was extraordinary.”
Watch the “Bringing Berk to Life” featurette:
Every aspect of production was meticulously crafted to translate the sense of wonder into realism, and at the head is original director Dean DeBlois, who’s excited to show everyone the Isle of Berk, and all its inhabitants. “I decided to revisit How to Train Your Dragon because it presented a remarkable opportunity—not only to direct a live-action film, but to return to a world I’ve genuinely missed,” DeBlois says. “These characters and this universe have stayed with me, and now we can bring them back with such authenticity and conviction that, when audiences enter this world, they’ll never want to leave.”
In How To Train Your Dragon, Vikings and dragons are embittered in a generations-long feud. When Hiccup, a young Viking, befriends the Night Fury Toothless, they defy centuries of tradition, and their unlikely friendship might be the key to saving the island from a looming threat.
The heart and soul of the film was rooted in the characters and the dragons, and realism was key in capturing all the emotional moments of How to Train Your Dragon. “The key is grounding the dragons in familiar animal behaviors,” DeBlois says. “By drawing inspiration from cats, dogs, horses and other animals, we’ve created creatures that feel authentic even though they’re fantasy creatures. Each dragon has a unique personality, and they live within a real, grounded world. Our goal was to make audiences believe in dragons as completely as they believed in the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.”
In crafting this rich world, the filmmakers keep to heart what makes the film resonate with audiences. “My hope is that audiences who loved these characters in animation will discover them all over again, both with familiar warmth and surprising new depth,” DeBlois says. “We approached this adaptation with profound respect for what came before, while daring to imagine what could be. It’s a story that captures the magic of flying, the courage to question what we’re taught and the wonder of discovering something extraordinary within yourself. That’s what How to Train Your Dragon has always been about—and what this film delivers in a way audiences have never seen before.”
Soar to new heights as How to Train Your Dragon arrives in PH cinemas on June 11. Follow Universal Pictures PH (FB), UniversalPicturesPH (IG), and UniversalPicsPH (TikTok) for the latest updates.
