How To Train Your Dragon’s Live-Action Trailer Proves The Biggest Fear About DreamWorks’ Adaptation Was Right All Along

With many wondering why DreamWorks chose to adapt How to Train Your Dragon into live-action, the studio’s teaser trailer confirms a major fear about the upcoming remake. Announced in February 2023, the new movie has been in the works for around two years. The project is recalling writer/director Dean DeBlois, who has been one of the most heavily involved creatives with the Dragons movie franchise to date. Those familiar with the original will probably experience very few surprises when watching the live-action version, begging the question of why a live-action How to Train Your Dragon cast has been assembled.

The animated How to Train Your Dragon movies and TV shows create a sprawling saga of the shifting dynamic between the franchise’s Vikings and their scaly adversaries-turned-allies. However, the upcoming remake won’t slot into the vast continuity that already exists but instead appears to be starting from scratch. DreamWorks isn’t the first studio to explore this avenue with an existing movie or franchise, but adapting this particular story has resulted in many raised eyebrows for several reasons. With so many exciting stories and fights across the Dragons franchise already, it’s unclear what a remake could offer.

How To Train Your Dragon’s Live-Action Remake Just Looks Like A Shot-For-Shot Remake Of The Original

The 2025 Dragons movie has been faithful to a fault

DreamWorks has finally revealed its first substantial look at its live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie, and it looks as though the remake has chosen to be painfully faithful to the original. Although the teaser is only a minute or so long, it still manages to reveal a handful of recreated shots from the 2010 movie of the same name. While remakes can often be criticized for straying too far from the source material, the upcoming 2025 effort appears to have played it far too safe.

There are several moments from the trailer that have a direct counterpart in the original movie, including Hiccup’s success in allowing Toothless to place his hand on his face for the first time. While it’s great that iconic moments such as these are being left largely intact, if every shot mimics the 2010 effort, the decision to remake How to Train Your Dragon falls even further under the microscope.

The Point Of A Live-Action How To Train Your Dragon Movie Is Even Less Clear Now

DreamWorks’ decision to remake its 2010 movie doesn’t seem to include anything new

With the first movie only being released fourteen years ago, it feels far too soon to adapt it for live-action. This feels especially true when the third and final movie, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, premiered as recently as 2019. If a live-action Dragons project has to be made, it would surely make more sense to add to the existing canon rather than retreading the same narrative ground not only so precisely, but also soon after the original saga’s cinematic conclusion. In short, DreamWorks’ big reveal of their upcoming project has raised more questions than it answered.

Disney is the studio most known for making live-action adaptations of its movies. However, Disney’s live-action movie remakes generally happen decades after the original animated version was released, and the story often feels renewed and looks very different. For example, 1994’s The Lion King wasn’t given the live-action treatment until 2019, marking a 25-year gap between the original and the remake. Plus, Disney’s focus on the lions looking as realistic as possible in the 2019 effort creates a major separation from the 1994 version – even if they are still talking animals. Of course, Moana‘s live-action remake is an outlier here.

Live-Action How To Train Your Dragon Looks Great Visually, At Least

DreamWorks hasn’t cheaped out on the movie’s production values

At present, there appears to be very little advantage to watching 2025’s How to Train Your Dragon over the original. That being said, at least DreamWorks appears to be putting a lot of effort into making what is essentially a replacement look absolutely amazing from a visual perspective. Not only does Gerard Butler look great as Stoick as he comes back to reprise his role in live-action, but the movie has also avoided falling into a common trap many other remakes of this nature can fall into.

Related

How To Train Your Dragon’s Live-Action Toothless Design Eases A Major Concern

The first look at Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon’s teaser trailer should ease many of the design concerns of hardcore franchise fans.

The movie’s titular beasts, including Hiccup, have remained pretty much unchanged from a design point of view. The dragons have simply upgraded to align a little more with their new surroundings. Things like their scales are more visible, and more clearly defined, and the beasts generally just look as realistic as they can without losing their signature cartoonish aesthetic. Given how bad the original Sonic the Hedgehog looked in his 2020 movie before the animators were pressured into a redesign, it’s a huge relief to see How to Train Your Dragon hasn’t made the same misguided move.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo

How to Train Your Dragon, set on the Viking island of Berk, follows Hiccup, a young Viking who challenges tradition by befriending a Night Fury dragon named Toothless. Their bond reveals new insights about dragons and transforms Viking society’s understanding of these creatures.

Director

Dean DeBlois

Release Date

June 13, 2025

Studio(s)

DreamWorks Pictures

Distributor(s)

Universal Pictures

Writers

Dean DeBlois

Cast

Mason Thames , Nico Parker , Gerard Butler , Nick Frost , Julian Dennison , Gabriel Howell , Bronwyn James , Harry Trevaldwyn , Ruth Codd

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