Summary
The full trailer forDreamWorks' upcoming live-action remake of their 2010 classic animated filmHow to Train Your Dragonwas just released, and it looks like it could be the start of a new chapter for the company — thoughnot necessarily in a good way.The trailer translates much of theoriginal’s look and feel into live-action, even directly recreating some of the animated film’s most iconic shots. It looks to be a very faithful adaptation, but one that raises the same questions as many of DreamWorks' competitor Disney’s recent live-action remakes. Chief among them: why?
Disney has seen massive financial success from its recent slate of remakes of its animated classics.2019’sThe Lion Kingearned over a billion dollars worldwide, and2023’sThe Little Mermaidmade over half a billion. (The less said aboutmisfires like 2022’sPinocchio,the better.) While the strategy seems to be working from a monetary standpoint, many fans and critics can’t help but feel like the exercise is unnecessary and misses the point of what made those films special in the first place. IfHow to Train Your Dragonis a box office success, it might mean DreamWorks is following Disney down this worrying path.
DreamWorks' Creative Struggles
DreamWorks has often struggled to get out of Disney’s long shadow in the realm of animation. Where their direct competitor Pixar saw both critical acclaim and box office success year after year (not to mention being a dead lock for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars), DreamWorks' projects often fell short of reaching that high bar. Many of its mostsuccessful franchises, likeShrek, Madagascar,andTrolls,are viewed as lacking depth in comparison to Pixar’s work, focusing more on sugar-rush entertainment for kids than the deeper resonance that movies likeUporWall-Eachieved.
How to Train Your Dragon,by contrast, is one of DreamWorks' biggest successes, earning rave reviews and pulling pretty big numbers at the box office. Its story, adapted from the novels by Cressida Cowell, follows an outcast hero breaking centuries of animosity between humans and dragons. It had the kind of emotional weight that many of their other projects had struggled to achieve. Subsequent films didn’t always live up to this standard, thoughlast year’sThe Wild Robotis a notable exception. From a business standpoint, if the company was going to remake any of its films in live-action,How to Train Your Dragonis a logical choice.
But from a creative standpoint, it still doesn’t hold up. There’s an argument to be made that Disney’s live-action remakes were a chance to update some of their classic titles for a younger audience that didn’t grow up on the hand-drawn films, while simultaneously cashing in on the nostalgia of the young parents who did. But with only fifteen years separating the originalHow to Train Your Dragonfrom the remake, it feels like not enough time has passed to warrant a reintroduction. The remakeeven features Gerard Butlerreprising his voice role from the original, which further underscores the dubious merits of the whole endeavor.
Adding to this feeling is the fact that, judging by the trailer, the creative team is possibly being too reverent of the original to justify their new vision. The designs of the dragons — Toothless in particular — are nearly identical to the animated version. Even the sets and costumes look like the original animated designs rendered in live action. If the film created a unique look that paid homage to the original without studiously imitating it, it may have been easier to see it as a new take on the story. As the trailer ends, viewers are left with the curious feeling of why DreamWorks couldn’t have saved themselves a lot of money and just re-released the original in theaters.
WhyHow to Train Your DragonMight Point to DreamWorks' Future
It’s no secret that the movie industry is in a weird place right now, after the twin setbacks of the Covid-19 pandemic and the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes ground production to a halt. Now, in the wake of the recent wildfires causing further production delays, Hollywood will no doubt be more risk-averse than ever. Movies have always been as much a business as an art form, if not more so, and the studios are behaving like any business when the profits go down. DreamWorks no doubt sees this as an opportunity to cash in on some of its own nostalgia, with Gen Z viewers who grew up on their movies now reaching an age where they might start looking back wistfully on their childhoods.
At the end of the day, neither DreamWorks nor Disney would be offering up live-action remakes of their animated films if people didn’t show up to see them, and it seems like audiences have been happy to oblige so far. IfHow to Train Your Dragondoes as well as DreamWorks is hoping it does, it likely won’t be long before they start looking to other animated films to remake. Will audiences soon get to see Megamind’s swollen head rendered in latex prosthetics? Maybe some photo-realistic animal hijinks in a live-actionMadagascar? MaybeBad Bunny actually will get to play Shrekafter all? It all depends on how their first foray into remakes does at the box office. DreamWorks might be on the cusp of its own era of unnecessary remakes, and unlike Disney, theirs don’t even have songs to sing along with.
