Dragons Swoop In On Hollywood

Cressida Cowell had an excellent Christmas in 2009. Dreamworks bought the exclusive rights to all her How To Train Your Dragon books. “All eight! I think they covered everything.” When Dreamworks optioned her first book written in 2004, they started the long six year process of turning her vision into an animated action adventure. “I’ve written eight in the time it’s taken them to make one movie.” laughs Cressida.

When you see How To Train Your Dragon the film, you’ll notice some big departures from the books. But according to the author that was fine. “I very much saw it, right from the beginning, as their movie, because I’m not a movie writer. Although I was in touch throughout and I flagged up issues as we went along. I very much saw it as their movie creatively.”

When I asked the creative team about some of these big changes Dean DeBlois (Milo & Stitch) responded, “The mandate coming in was to age up the material a little bit and broaden the world and kind of take the world Cressida created and expand it for a big fantasy adventure. Part of that was creating a level of believability within this world so that we understood the stakes and the peril.”

What this means is that in the film version, Vikings kill dragons, whereas in the books, Viking children had to capture a dragon and train them instead. In the film its more of a life or death situation. The film makers thought it would be more dramatic if Hiccup, our hero, voiced by Jay Baruchel (Superbad), started as enemies with dragons. And then as he learns about Toothless, a dragon he wounds in battle, “Hiccup would be the first to cross that divide.” “Everybody has their own dragon mythology. It’s something built into mankind, creating these noble, savage, terrifying monsters. Monster stories are a part of every culture.” And as children, learning how to face our fears is very important.

Another major change from the books was adding female characters. Tuffnut, voiced by T.J. Miller (She’s Out of His League), was given a twin sister played by Kristen Wiig (Whip It). And America Ferrera (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) was brought in to play Astrid, the fiercest and most determined of the Viking teenagers. “I’m a bit embarrassed that there were no female characters in my first book,” admits Cressida, “Which I actually hadn’t noticed until my daughter pointed it out. And I mean it sounds terrible that I hadn’t even noticed, but I hadn’t. So I wrote a female character for the third book.” America Ferrera was thrilled to be such a positive addition.

When producer Bonnie Arnold (Toy Story) was asked if this film would become a series like Shrek she said, “We don’t know yet. I hope so.” But they bought all the rights just in case. Dean DeBois adds, “Now that we have Vikings on dragon back we have obviously broadened their world. So there are many adventures that these characters can get in to.”

When considering the voice cast, getting them back together for another film won’t be a problem. Gerard Butler (300) says, “The best thing was the treat that you get at the end of it, seeing it all come together. Because as much as I think that everyone in the cast is fantastic, I think the real geniuses are the guys that wrote it, the guys that directed it, and the animators that created it, because when you see it, you go wow!”

How To Train Your Dragon is an epic adventure that opens March 26th.