How to Train Your Dragon was a critical and commercial success. So how can Dreamworks pull off another installment with the bar set so high?
The answer lies on the shoulders of director Dean DeBlois who’s back for How to Train Your Dragon 2 (and Dragon 3 in 2016).
Hypable had the chance to visit Dreamworks in Glendale, California in May to see the film and meet with the production team including the director.
Shortly after the first Dragon was released in 2010 and the film racked up an impressive 98% average on Rotten Tomatoes and a nearly-$500 million box office worldwide, DeBlois was approached by Dreamworks about moving ahead with a sequel.
Hesitation set in. It couldn’t be a story that picks up where the original left off, DeBlois thought, because Hiccup was happy at the end. “Too often a sequel just feels a bit unnecessary, like they’re recycling material or they feel random and inconsequential.”
By advancing the story several years, DeBlois could present a new set of problems for Hiccup. “It’s another stage of his life. The one thing about the first movie is that when you look at Hiccups’ problems at the time, he was yearning for the affection of his father and the acceptance of his community, and the attention of a girl that he had a crush on. He managed to get all of those things, plus he got a really cool dragon. So what’s the problem to start a second movie?”
“By meeting him as a 20-year-old, it means that now he’s at a different stage of his life,” he explains. “He’s at the threshold of youth and adulthood, and where he fits into it all, not feeling like he’s a carbon copy of his father, and he has a journey of discovery to go on.”
An added benefit is the fact that the audience has grown up with Hiccup, his friends, and family. “It’s nice because our audience that loved the first movie have grown up with the characters, much like the Harry Potter movies, so it’s nice to be able to age our characters up accordingly.”
Winning over audiences of all ages
How to Train Your Dragon nabbed the 98% average on Rotten Tomatoes for good reason: The movie appeals to a wide-ranging audience. For DeBlois, it’s important that they continue to appeal to older audiences as well as the kids.
“I never second guess an audience, that’s my thing,” he explains, “I try to make the movie that I would’ve loved to have seen when I was ten and that I would love to see now. There are examples of movies like that out there now, and for me, that movie is Empire Strikes Back. It was the ultimate one. Not only is it the best sequel I can think of, but it spoke to such a broad audience. And I think that’s what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to make a true four-quadrant movie that speaks to the adults as much as the youngsters.”
He shakes off the idea that Dragon is just a kids movie. “We always try to entertain everyone in the audience, but not alienate or leave behind the kids. I think an aspirational hero is a big part of that. Hiccup we saw sort of rise to become the town hero in the first movie, [we’re] charting his journey to when he becomes the wise viking chief by the end of the trilogy. This is that middle step of recognizing that he is the sum of his parts – he’s equal parts both his mother and his father, but he’s also something else. And that hybrid is the discovery he goes through in this movie.”
However, kids are certainly a target for Dreamworks. When we visited the studio we learned about a huge assortment of products hitting store shelves over the summer geared towards children including toys, clothes, online games, and branded food. Like with any franchise, you can expect to see many products over the next few years as the film and television series continue.
Aging up Hiccup
Before Hiccup becomes the viking chief, he has to continue to grow. When the 20-year-old Hiccup was revealed in July of last year, the internet was abuzz over how nicely Hiccup has aged (read: He’s attractive).
For the film’s production team including production designer Pierre-Olivier Vincent, a lot of research went into deciding what the older Hiccup should look like this time around. “We looked at my image when I started at Dreamworks sixteen years ago. It was very sad,” he joked. “But I think the clue for us was to always remember what he looked like in the first movie.”
“It’s a big challenge. Kids change a lot and sometimes dramatically at that age, so we wanted to keep the eyes, we wanted to make his haircut a bit messier because we were able to do this now [thanks to technology]. It was a lot of references – we did a lot of research of young people. It’s a normal process of design.”
They were also influenced by actor Jay Baruchel who voices Hiccup. “Even if his face isn’t literally the face of Hiccup, Jay was an inspiration. He stands like – he’s very skinny. Even in his posture, when the animators were looking at [Jay], they said, ‘Oh I’m going to try it like this.’ So he was an inspiration as well.”
Though our full review is still to come (check back later this week), we’re happy to report that How to Train Your Dragon 2 lives up to the original, packing as much fun and heart as you’d expect from this blossoming franchise.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 opens this Friday, June 13.
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