‘How To Train Your Dragon' flies high again: Director, star on pressure, puppets and bringing Toothless to life
The fantasy adventure, which has grossed US$560 million (RM2.4 billion) worldwide since its release in June, came out some 15 years after the DreamWorks animation, which DeBlois co-wrote and co-directed. DeBlois also directed the two subsequent animations.
Staying loyal to the original, the live-action follows kind-hearted young Viking Hiccup, played by Mason Thames, who secretly befriends a dragon he names Toothless.
In an interview with Reuters ahead of the film's release on digital platforms on Tuesday, which includes behind-the-scenes vignettes, DeBlois and Thames spoke about bringing the animation to life.
Below are excerpts edited for length and clarity.
Q: What was it like revisiting this world and bringing it to life?
DeBlois: 'It was certainly a fun challenge to take a story that I had basically put to bed after spending a decade of my life on it and to sort of dive back into the world but through the live action lens, which meant we could present a ... very grounded, a very credible version of this world. And that meant being able to scout locations in Iceland and the Faroe Islands and Scotland to start to design and build actual sets ... where we could walk around and touch things.'
Q: What was it like stepping into the franchise?
Thames: 'It was very daunting and slightly terrifying because ... so many people care about this world and these characters ... I really wanted to do Hiccup as a character justice ... and finding my version was a lot of fun.'
Q: How did you bring to life some of the animation's famous scenes, like Forbidden Friendship and Test Flight?
DeBlois on Forbidden Friendship: 'Our solution was to give Mason a dragon and we did so by creating foam versions of Toothless ... that would be puppeteered by Tom Wilton ... And so they worked out the choreography, the drawing in the sand, the sort of stepping around lines and coming to touch for the first time in this beautiful way set to John Powell's music.'
Thames on Test Flight: 'It's just me on ... a giant mechanical bull with wind machines in my face ... I had the music playing in the background, which was really cool.'
Q: Given the film's success, how do you feel going into the sequel?
DeBlois: 'I feel relieved that the movie is being embraced, that audiences are showing up and they're definitely demonstrating that there's still an appetite for this world and these characters. And I also feel the pressure to deliver at the highest level we can ... No instalment of How to Train Your Dragon should feel like a disappointment that stains the franchise. So I always feel that pressure, for sure.' — Reuters
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