How to Train Your Dragon (2010 film)

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How to Train Your Dragon
In a night sky, Hiccup puts his hand over a dragon called Toothless
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Screenplay by
Based onHow to Train Your Dragon
by Cressida Cowell
Produced byBonnie Arnold
Starring
CinematographyRoger Deakins (visual consultant)
Edited by
Music byJohn Powell
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures[1]
Release dates
  • March 21, 2010 (2010-03-21) (
    Gibson Amphitheater
    )
  • March 26, 2010 (2010-03-26) (United States)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$165 million[2]
Box office$494.9 million[2]

How to Train Your Dragon is a 2010 American

dragon slayer
like the other Vikings, injures a rare Night Fury dragon but is unable to bring himself to kill it. He instead helps and befriends the dragon, and quickly discovers that things are not exactly as they seem in the conflict between Vikings and dragons.

In 2004, the book series began attracting the attention of the executives at DreamWorks Animation. After the success of

the Coen brothers) as a visual consultant to help them with lighting and aesthetic of the film and to add a live-action feel. John Powell
composed the film's musical score.

How to Train Your Dragon premiered at the

Gibson Amphitheater on March 21, 2010,[3] and was released in the United States on March 26, by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation. The film was a commercial success, earning nearly $500 million worldwide. It was widely acclaimed for its animation, voice acting, writing, musical score, and 3D sequences. The film was nominated for two awards at the 83rd Academy Awards and received numerous other accolades. How to Train Your Dragon is the first entry in what would become the multimedia franchise of the same name, which includes two more films—How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019). A live-action reboot from Universal Pictures is scheduled to be released on June 13, 2025.[4][5][6]

Plot

The Viking village of Berk is frequently attacked by dragons that steal livestock and endanger the villagers. Hiccup, the 15-year-old son of the village chieftain, Stoick the Vast, is deemed too weak to fight. Instead, he creates mechanical devices under apprenticeship with Gobber, the village blacksmith. Hiccup uses a bolas launcher to shoot down a Night Fury, a rare dragon, during a dragon raid. He goes into the forest and finds the creature but cannot bring himself to kill it and sets it free instead.

Before leaving with his fleet to find and destroy the dragons' nest, Stoick enrolls Hiccup in a dragon-fighting class with fellow teenagers Fishlegs, Snotlout, twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut, and Astrid, on whom Hiccup has a crush. Facing little success in the class, Hiccup returns to the forest and finds the Night Fury in a cove, unable to fly because Hiccup's bolas tore off half his tail fin. Hiccup gradually befriends the dragon, naming him 'Toothless' after his retractable teeth, and designs a harness and

prosthetic
fin that allows Toothless to fly with Hiccup riding him.

Learning dragon behavior from Toothless, Hiccup is able to subdue the captive dragons during training, earning admiration from his peers, but sparking suspicion and jealousy from Astrid. Stoick's fleet returns home unsuccessful. Hiccup must kill a dragon for his final exam. He tries to run away with Toothless, but Astrid discovers the dragon. Hiccup takes her for a flight to demonstrate that Toothless is friendly. During the flight, Toothless is hypnotically drawn to the dragons' nest. There, a gargantuan dragon named the Red Death summons smaller dragons to feed it copious amounts of live food to avoid being eaten themselves. Realizing the dragons have been forced to attack Berk to survive, Astrid wishes to tell the village, but Hiccup advises against it to protect Toothless.

In his final exam, Hiccup faces a captive Monstrous Nightmare dragon and tries to subdue him to prove that dragons can be peaceful. When Stoick unintentionally enrages the dragon into attacking, Toothless arrives to protect Hiccup but is captured. After Hiccup accidentally reveals that Toothless knows the location of the dragons' nest, Stoick, furious, disowns Hiccup and sets off for the nest with Toothless guiding. Astrid prompts Hiccup to realize that he spared Toothless out of compassion, not weakness. Regaining his confidence, Hiccup shows his friends how to befriend the training dragons, and they set out after Toothless.

Stoick and his Vikings locate and break open the dragon's nest, awakening the Red Death, which overwhelms them. Hiccup and his friends ride in on the training dragons, distracting the Red Death. Hiccup attempts to free Toothless; Stoick rescues them, reconciling with his son. Toothless and Hiccup destroy the Red Death through teamwork. Whilst escaping the explosion, Hiccup gets knocked off Toothless. The Vikings and Stoick find out that Toothless saved Hiccup from the explosion by covering him with his wings, but Hiccup has lost his lower left leg.

Some time later, Hiccup awakes back on Berk and finds that Gobber has fashioned him a prosthetic. He is now admired by his village, including Astrid, who kisses him. Berk begins a new era of humans and dragons living in peace.

Voice cast

  • Jay Baruchel – Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the awkward son of Stoick the Vast.[7]
  • Randy Thom – vocal effects for Toothless, Hiccup’s faithful Night Fury.[8]
  • America Ferrera – Astrid Hofferson, Hiccup's fellow student in dragon training and his love interest.
  • Gerard Butler – Stoick the Vast, the chieftain of Berk and Hiccup's father.[7]
  • Craig Ferguson – Gobber the Belch, Berk's blacksmith, a close friend of Stoick's and teacher of the tribe's young dragon-training recruits.[9][7]
  • Christopher Mintz-Plasse – Fishlegs Ingerman, an enthusiastic youth knowledgeable in dragon lore which he often relates in role-playing game style.[10][7]
  • Jonah Hill – Snotlout Jorgenson, one of Hiccup's dragon-training classmates. Snotlout is brash, overconfident, and fairly unintelligent, but reliable.
  • T.J. Miller and Kristen Wiig – Tuffnut and Ruffnut Thorston, a pair of quarrelsome twins.
  • David Tennant – Spitelout, Snotlout's father.[11]
  • Robin Atkin Downes – Ack, a blond-bearded Viking.
  • Philip McGrade – Starkard.
  • Kieron Elliott – Hoark the Haggard, a Viking with a knotted beard.
  • Ashley Jensen – Phlegma the Fierce, a female Viking.

Production

Early production concept artwork of Toothless and Hiccup

The book series by Cressida Cowell began coming to attention to the executives at DreamWorks Animation in 2004. Coming off her success in Over the Hedge, producer Bonnie Arnold shortly became interested in the newly acquired property. She kept focusing on the project as time went on, and when DreamWorks Animation co-president of production Bill Damaschke asked her what she wanted to work on next, she chose "How to Train Your Dragon".[12]

During initial development, the plot followed the original novel closely, but about halfway through production

the Coen brothers) as a visual consultant to help them with lighting and overall look of the film and to "add a live-action feel".[13] Extensive research was done to depict both flight, as the directors knew they would be the biggest draw of the film's 3D effects, and fire, given animation could break away from the limitations seen in live-action films, where propane flames are usual due to being easier to extinguish. The dragons' designers made sure to create animals that were comical and also innovative compared to other dragon fiction. Toothless in particular tried to combine various dragon traits in a black panther-inspired design, that also had large ears and eyes to convey emotion better.[14]

The directors made sure to cash in the improvisation abilities of the secondary cast—Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig and T.J Miller—by frequently bringing them together in the recording sessions.[7]

Music

Main article: How to Train Your Dragon (soundtrack)

Jónsi wrote and performed the song "Sticks & Stones" for the film. The score was released by Varèse Sarabande
on March 23, 2010.

Overall, the score was well received by film score critics. Powell earned his first Academy Award nomination for his work on the film, ultimately losing to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their score for The Social Network.

Release

Theatrical

How to Train Your Dragon had its United States premiere on March 21, 2010 at the

IMAX 3D, and released to 186 North American IMAX theaters, and approximately 80 IMAX theatres outside North America.[15]

A month before the release, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg protested Warner Bros.' decision to convert Clash of the Titans from 2D to 3D, then to release it one week after How to Train Your Dragon.[17] Entertainment reporter Kim Masters described the 3D release schedule around March 2010 as a "traffic jam", and speculated that the lack of 3D screen availability could hurt Katzenberg's prospects despite his support of the 3D format.[18] That month, theater industry executives accused Paramount Pictures (who distributed the film on behalf of DreamWorks) of using high-pressure tactics to coerce theaters to screen How to Train Your Dragon rather than competing 3D releases, Clash of the Titans and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. As theater multiplexes often had just one 3D screen, theaters were unable to accommodate more than one 3D presentation at a time.[19]

Home media

How to Train Your Dragon was released on single-disc DVD, two-disc double DVD pack, and

Book of Dragons and an episode of DreamWorks Dragons added as additional bonus features.[21]

In July 2014, the film's distribution rights were purchased by

20th Century Fox[22] before reverting to Universal Studios in 2018. As a result, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray version of the film on January 22, 2019 alongside the film's sequel How to Train Your Dragon 2, making them the first DreamWorks Animation catalog titles to be released on that format, and in preparation for the release of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World the following month.[23][24]

Reception

Box office

How to Train Your Dragon topped the North American box office with $43.7 million in its first weekend of release.[25] The film grossed $217.6 million in the United States and Canada and $277.3 million in foreign countries with a worldwide total of $494.9 million.[2] How to Train Your Dragon is DreamWorks Animation's highest-grossing film in the American and Canadian box office other than the Shrek films.[26] It is the fifth-highest-grossing animated film of 2010, behind Toy Story 3 with $1,063.2 million, Shrek Forever After with $752.6 million, Tangled with $576.6 million, and Despicable Me with $543.1 million and the 10th-highest-grossing movie of 2010.[27] As of 2019, the How to Train Your Dragon series has grossed over $1 billion worldwide.[28]

Critical response

How to Train Your Dragon was widely praised upon its release. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 99% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 214 reviews from professional critics, with an overall rating average of 7.9/10.[29] The website's critical consensus states, "Boasting dazzling animation, a script with surprising dramatic depth, and thrilling 3-D sequences, How to Train Your Dragon soars."[29] The film is DreamWorks Animation's highest-rated film on the Rotten Tomatoes website.[30] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 based on 37 reviews from critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[31] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[32]

Matt Risley of Variety wrote a highly positive review, hailing it as "undoubtedly Dreamworks' best film yet, and quite probably the best dragon movie ever made".[33] James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, and complimented both the "technically proficient" animation and the "witty, intelligent, surprisingly insightful script".[34] Claudia Puig of USA Today noted that the film had "surprising depth", and praised the "sweetly poignant tale of friendship between man and animal".[35] Entertainment Weekly film critic Owen Gleiberman praised the film's usage of 3-D in all "its breathtaking spatial and emotional possibilities"; he gave a rating of A−.[36]

Both

Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers, giving it three out of four stars, wrote that the film "works enough miracles of 3-D animation to charm your socks off."[39]

Roger Moore of

Village Voice film critic Ella Taylor also gave a more negative review of the film, describing it as an "adequate but unremarkable animated tale".[41]

Accolades

Main article: List of accolades received by How to Train Your Dragon (2010 film)

At the

Golden Globe Award.[47]

Sequels and franchise

Main article: How to Train Your Dragon

The film was followed by two sequels,

Book of Dragons (2011), Gift of the Night Fury (2011),[48] Dawn of the Dragon Racers (2014)[49] and How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming
(2019).

T. J. Miller reprise their roles as Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs, and Tuffnut. The series, set between the first and second film, follows Hiccup and his friends as they learn more about dragons, discover new ones, teach others to feel comfortable around them, adapt traditions within the village to fit their new friends and battle against enemies as they explore new worlds.[50]

An

PS3 and Nintendo DS gaming consoles. It is loosely based on the film and was released on March 23, 2010. In addition, School of Dragons, a 3D free-to-play MMO, was released on July 17, 2013, at the San Diego Comic-Con.[51][52] The game is available for PC, Android and iOS.[53]

HarperCollins Children's Books published a storybook version of the film in 2010. The story was adapted by Rennie Brown while the illustrations were painted by Michael Koelsch.[54]

How to Train Your Dragon Arena Spectacular is an arena show adaptation of the first film featuring 24 animatronic dragons, acrobats and projections. It premiered on March 2, 2012, in Melbourne, Australia.[55]

A live-action reboot was announced to be in development. It will be produced by Marc Platt Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures, with DeBlois set to return to write and direct. It was originally scheduled for release on March 14, 2025, but was delayed to June 13 of that year due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.[56][57][6] Mason Thames and Nico Parker were cast as Hiccup and Astrid, respectively,[58] with Gerard Butler reprising his role as Stoick.[59]

Notes

References

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  5. ^ Kit, Borys (February 15, 2023). "How to Train Your Dragon Live-Action Movie in the Works from Dean DeBlois, Universal". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
  6. ^ a b D'Alessandro, Anthony (November 3, 2023). "'How To Train Your Dragon' Live-Action Feature Pushed Due To Actors Strike". Deadline. Retrieved November 3, 2023.
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External links

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