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Goddammit Toothless, you’re adorable. The third film in the saga from Dreamworks, How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World, introduces a whole new dragon paradise and a major threat to their Dragon-Viking utopia. But all of that has to get put on pause for a second: Toothless is looking for a date.
Dreamworks has released the first trailer for How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World. Jay Baruchel returns as Hiccup, as he serves as chief and rule of Berk alongside Astrid (America Ferrera). And if you thought he was sexy in the second How To Train Your Dragon film, just wait until you see grown-up Hiccup sporting a beard even Chris Evans would be proud of.
As Hiccup and his village work to maintain a peaceful coexistence with dragons, the sudden appearance of a “Light Fury” dragon puts Toothless a bit on edge. She’s cuuuuuuuute. But a major threat appears in the form of a dragon hunter who wants to take out our favorite dragon boy... because he’s “the only one” of his kind! Cue Dragonheart joke here.
How To Train Your Dragon 3 comes out March 1, 2019.
DreamWorks and Universal
The hits keep a-coming in what may be the most crowded week for trailer drops that I can remember. We now have our first look at DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. The flick, due on March 1, 2019, is going to be the first DWA release since they left 20th Century Fox and headed over to Comcast Corp. It has been nearly four years since the last How To Train Your Dragon movie opened in June 2014.
At the time, I pegged it as a possible break-out sequel (the first one had a 5x multiplier) and a “biggest movie of summer” contender in a somewhat weak crowd of comparatively B-level franchises. It earned a still-great $621 million worldwide on a $165m budget, but it slightly underperformed in North America with $177m from a $49m opening. Despite (or because of) rave pre-release reviews, the film ended up way under the $217m domestic figure of the first How To Train Your Dragon in early 2010 but did a heck of a lot better worldwide compared to the $494m-grossing original.
It was another in a long line of DWA releases to get tarred with negative press after a soft or soft-ish opening only to stick around for awhile and soar overseas. Nonetheless, the perception was that the film wasn’t as big as it could have been. This was perhaps due to the franchise’s availability on TV in episodic form (a common issue now that almost every DWA movie has become a TV show in some form or another) or due to the darker, more emotionally-draining story that was closer in tone to Toy Story 3 than Madagascar 2.
Intriguingly enough, How To Train Your Dragon 2 marked a turning point in DWA’s animated destiny. Yes, it earned rave reviews and is often considered their very best movie, but the grim plot turns (including the murder of a beloved supporting character at the hands of another beloved supporting character) took its toll on the film’s family-driven buzz. As I noted at the time, considering the consumer base who don't want their kids to cry at the movies, I might argue that my mixed-positive “It’s okay and there’s nothing offensive” review of Planes: Fire and Rescue was more helpful to that film than my “It’s an emotional powerhouse and the best movie of the summer!” rave for HTTYD2.
After that movie, and the complicated reception of the also tremendous but also very dark Kung Fu Panda 2 (which dealt with an onscreen genocide at the hands of the baddie), DWA movies started to lighten up quite a bit. Kung Fu Panda 3 was the lightest and least consequential of the series, to its detriment, feeling less like a theatrical drama and more like a three-part episode of Legends of Awesomeness. How to Train Your Dragon 2 was arguably the last DWA movie that could in any way be classified as a drama.
That’s not to say that DreamWorks ignored serious issues, far from it. Home was a story of imperialism and colonialism disguised as a gee-whiz alien invasion story. Moreover, Trolls was essentially a story about genocide and mass murder done up as a candy-colored musical comedy. It’s hard to argue that the successes of these films showed that DWA was on the wrong track, and even something like the aggressive insane The Boss Baby would have been hailed as a whacked-out classic had it come from a more prestigious studio.
DreamWorks Animation
All of this brings us to Dean DeBlois’s third (and final) How To Train Your Dragon movie. By the end of the last film (spoilers obviously), Hiccup was the leader of his human clan(s) while his dragon Toothless had become the leader of the dragon clan(s). That was an exciting new status quo, one that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to a third installment. Like The Godfather Part II, The Dark Knight, John Wick: Chapter 2 and The Last Jedi, there is peril in offering the third installment when the second ends on such a satisfying note of finality. Just because Lord of the Rings and Star Wars were trilogies doesn’t mean everything has to be.
Nonetheless, I am a huge How to Train Your Dragon fan, and I will be there to see how it all ends when the time comes. I do wonder if this third film is the beginning of an era (via the DWA/Comcast partnership) and the end of another (will HTTYD3 be DreamWorks Animation’s last outright drama?). Okay, so How to Train Your Dragon stands somewhat by itself among sweeping/epic DWA movies, but even Rise of the Guardians and The Croods had some high drama in the post-Shrek era.
As noted many years ago, it has been interesting to see DreamWorks, once pitched as the more mature, grittier counterpoint to Walt Disney, become a shorthand for goofy, exceedingly kid-friendly animated comedies. Moreover, if Illumination is cornering the market on somewhat care-free, wholesome and babysitter-friendly animated biggies that were once DWA’s primary domain, it may be worth DWA’s while to embrace its inner Kung Fu Panda right alongside its inner Boss Baby.
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DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures have released the first trailer for How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. The third film in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise once again finds Dean DeBlois in the director’s chair and serving as the sole screenwriter for what’s intended to be the closing chapter of the series. Based on the books by Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon 3 finds Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) ascending to the role of village chief and ruler of Berk, while his dragon Toothless becomes the leader of his own kind. Their lives are thrown for a loop, however, with the arrival of a female Night Fury.
While a fourth Dragon film or potential spinoffs remain a possibility, DeBlois told us a few years ago that his intention and dedication was to completing a story with three chapters, so The Hidden World will likely at the very least conclude DeBlois’ work with this franchise after nearly a decade.
What’s surprising is how finished the film looks despite being nine months away. This trailer shows almost the entire story, and while I wouldn’t say it spoils the movie, it’s certainly a far cry from a teaser. And yet it looks good, and Toothless is somehow even more adorable than usual. Here’s hoping that the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy can go out on a high note.
Check out the How to Train Your Dragon 3 trailer below. The film also features the voices of America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Kit Harington, Craig Ferguson, and F. Murray Abraham. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World opens in theaters on March 1, 2019.
