February 13th, 2019 
Jackson Murphy 
DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon saga will do down in animation history as one of the most beloved and successful franchises of all time. Dean DeBlois, who co-directed the 2010 original, and then went solo for 2014’s “Dragon 2”, is back at the helm for the finale of the trilogy – How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
Jackson Murphy: When we spoke back in 2014 for How to Train Your Dragon 2 you told me you were going to take a little break and then go right into production on ‘Dragon 3’. Is that exactly what happened?
Dean DeBlois: Yeah, more or less. There were some delays in making the movie, but I… got to work shortly after a little break. I started generating some outlines and did a few drafts. I think this movie has taken the longest of all three of them, but it’s a labor of love. And when you’re working in animation, you know you’re in for the the long haul. I’m just glad to be on the other side of it. (laughs)
JM: Yeah. What a relief. I saw the movie at one of the Fandango nationwide screenings on Feb. 2. Sold-out showing – lots of families. The box office total on those was $2.5 million – really good. And the movie opened around New Year’s Day in places overseas, such as Australia. So were you relieved… did you get that sense of “okay, the movie’s out there now” a little bit early because of these early screenings and premieres?
DD: Yeah. So far so good. It’s always great to get reactions from people. I’m glad to see that it’s playing well around the world. We’re doing really well with the movie, and I can’t wait for the domestic release.
JM: Dean, you just keep adding Academy Award winners to the cast! Cate Blanchett last time – and now F. Murray Abraham, who’s terrific as the voice of Grimmel… the villain. What made him the perfect voice to be the villain for this chapter?
DD: Well, he’s F. Murray Abraham. (laughs) It was kind of a no-brainer. But this one came about in an interesting way. Normally we will sit down with our candidates, and as we’re figuring out the character we talk about possible casting – and eventually we pick out somebody. But in this case, it was a pretty wide net we were casting and we were still figuring out who the character was. We had a Supervising Animator early on, Rani Naamani, who was doing some exploratory work with the model. He was just picking different voices that he liked – just searching around the internet and doing a couple of tests.
And he found this great clip with F. Murray Abraham and did a test which kind of blew us away. It bounded off the screen and we thought, “Well, that’s perfect.” So we approached [Abraham] with an animation test. Murray was kind of tickled by that, and he loved the sound of the character and loved the opportunity to be part of this development as well.
JM: And Gerard Butler returns in “The Hidden World” in some flashback scenes. They’re some of my favorites in the film. Was Gerard Butler surprised, though, when he got the call to come back – considering what happens to Stoick in the second movie?
DD: No. I’d already reassured him in the second movie that he’d be back in the third. He knew. He just kept it under his lips until we were able to talk about it. We actually had many more flashbacks in the original version of the movie. With time constraints, we paired them back to the most significant ones for the story.
JM: I’m glad Gerard Butler got to know that. It’s nice to be guaranteed something coming up down the line, especially when you’re an actor in the movie business. And since “Dragon 2” was released, America Ferrera, who voices Astrid, is now a mom. And I could tell in listening to her voice performance here, it felt the most mature and rather motherly out of the three movies. Could you tell that in working with America Ferrera this time?
DD: Yeah. I don’t know if I specifically picked up on the motherhood part of it. But she, like many of actors, been voicing these characters for so long – for a decade. And she’s seen the path the character’s taking, in terms of Astrid’s maturity. So she was able to bring a lot of authenticity and authority to the character, which is great. I love working with actors who can take ownership of their characters because, as a writer, it’s a blessing. I can write in general terms, and once they get a hold of the material, we shape it together. And often times, the ideas that come out in the recording sessions are the ones that make it onto the screen.
JM: Maturity is a big theme of “The Hidden World”, along with romance. The scenes between Toothless and the Light Fury, as they get to know each other, are very elegant and poetic – but mostly dialogue-free. So was there more work this time for composer John Powell to find that great music to use?
DD: I think in animation, it is the strongest form to take – when you can have a sequence where there’s no dialogue and you can rely upon music, and rely upon the pantomimes of masterful animation – to really tell the story in these very wonder-filled moments. They tend to be the iconic moments in my experience – in the last films that I’ve worked on. In trusting John Powell to tell the story with his own personal take on it and his thematic elements play like harmonies to the sort of storytelling I’m concerned with – I feel completely confident I’m in good hands when I talk to John Powell about these sequences and say, “This is it. This is your time to shine.”
JM: I could tell the audience was enveloped in those sequences. And when it comes to the Light Fury herself, were there challenges in terms of design, look and where the character goes in trying to make her similar… but not too similar… to Toothless?
DD: That’s exactly it. We recognized that we wanted these two to be able to pair and eventually further their species. So they needed to look like they were of the same dragon family, although they are different sub-species. And Toothless is the last of his kind. But she’s similar enough to visually make that connection obvious. We streamlined her a little bit. We have her stealth abilities and relied much more on big cat behaviors. We studied lioness. We studied snow leopards, for example, and tried to incorporate much more of those feline traits into her movements and her personality.
JM: When The Hidden World itself is finally revealed, it definitely exceeded my expectations. Was this the most challenging sequence visually?
DD: I would say yes. I think it was the most challenging sequence because it really put to the test some new tools that we were given on this particular production. The technology has been advancing with every film. And we finally had a back end renderer that allowed us to realize the ambitions conceptually. So we had some wonderful intuitive, front end tools on the second film, which continued to be a blessing on this one. But when it came to rendering those images, some of them were just so complex in the past that we had to simplify.
And in this case, with the environments themselves being so lushly detailed and filled with all sorts of interesting, but difficult to achieve, light sources, it became a real challenge to render that world and all of its immense capacity. And then add to that the fact that we had on screen, at some points, thousands of dragons. It really put the technology to the test. And I’m happy to say, it delivered.
JM: It absolutely delivered. So I’m not going to give away spoilers, but if you’ve been with this series from the beginning, then the final 15 minutes of this movie are going to be very emotional for you. Was the intention always to go as far with the final act as you do?
DD: Yeah. We haven’t been at all vague about the idea that the third movie would not only see Hiccup become the wise, selfless chief he was destined to be – but it would accompany the disappearance of dragons. And that whole question of where they went, and why did they go, could they come back – it’s all the stuff of mystery, and it was the ambition from the start.
It coincides with a conversation I had with the author of the “How to Train Your Dragon” book series, Cressida Cowell. She visited the studio in 2010 and told me she was working on the final installment. In it she would explain what happened with dragons and why they are no more. And though the narratives in the books are very different from the films, I thought the spirit of that as a goal felt gripping, mysterious and very emotional. I love stories where you have disparate characters that come together and have such a profound affect on each other for a short period. But even though they may part ways in the end, they will never be the same again. And this was our opportunity to honor that particular story theme and to really bring our trilogy to a close in a conclusive, emotional and hopefully very satisfying way.
JM: Yes. You wrapped it up very nicely. How was the final day of production on this film for you?
DD: Final day is always interesting because it ends… I wouldn’t say anti-climatic… it’s just that you’re not aware that everything has come together. I was at Skywalker Ranch with the completion of the mix. So seeing John Powell’s music come beautifully together with dialogue and the sound effects that were created there by Randy Thom and his team… while back here in Glendale at the DreamWorks studio, the final touches were being put on the images. It all came together without me present. But I knew we were wrapping up. I just couldn’t be in two places at one time. It’s bittersweet because you want to be there with the crew to celebrate. But we’ll be doing that tomorrow night, however, at the wrap party.
JM: I’m sure that will be great! So Dean, are you going to take another little break and then move onto another series – another project? What’s next for you?
DD: That’s exactly it. Yes. I’m going to see this through with all of the press and the promotion. And then – yeah, hopefully a nice little vacation to clear my mind and get started on something completely new.
JM: Wow. But maybe, you’ll still be with this “Dragon” saga this time next year, when next year’s Academy Awards rolls around! I hope you’re they’re next year with it.
DD: I hope so, too.
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