Summary

• How to Train Your Dragon's live-action remake faces 8 big challenges, but each of them has a viable solution.
• Deg the dragons presents several challenges, but with enough care and creativity, the film can find the right way to bring them to live-action.
• It's important for the film to play off the momentum of the animated series and strike a balance between loyalty and originality.

The live-action version of live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie will presumably retell that initial animated feature's plot.

The success of the How to Train Your Dragon animated movies and TV shows should help the live-action remake gather a sizable audience when it's released, but that doesn't mean there won't be some difficulties as well. Adapting animated movies or TV shows to live-action always presents some common issues, but there are challenges unique to How to Train Your Dragon. Before it's done, the live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon will have to confront eight particularly pesky obstacles, but luckily, there are solutions to each of them.

8 Obstacle: Translating The Dragons' Designs To Live-Action

Solution: A balance between realistic & faithful

How to Train Your Dragon's most important obstacle is the design of its dragons. The animated films' dragons are cute and somewhat wonky in appearance, which puts How to Train Your Dragon in danger of repeating Sonic's design curse. The remake will need to make them look realistic enough that they're not distracting, but they still need to look enough like the original not to upset fans. To overcome the design obstacle, the film will have to strike a careful balance between realism and fidelity to the original designs, making the necessary tweaks without completely throwing the original designs out the window.

7 Obstacle: The Dragons Need To Have A Major Role

Solution: Control the budget and show the dragons often

Another thing that could be difficult for How to Train Your Dragon's live-action adaptation is giving the dragons a major role in the story. This problem is two-fold, as it carries both financial and story implications. Firstly, giving the dragons a big enough role in the film will be expensive since they will need to be made with CGI. This could eat into the money the film is able to spend on other aspects of the film, like creating an accurate depiction of Berk and other major locations. Overcoming this is as simple as carefully planning the budget, however, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

In of the story, it's essential for the dragons to be distinct characters with their own personalities, rather than vehicles for their riders. While this dragon difficulty is certainly surmountable, some might consider it one of the reasons a live-action How to Train Your Dragon is a bad idea. However, this obstacle, like the others, can be overcome with enough determination and creativity. The dragons' personalities can easily be conveyed by their body language and decision-making, the movie just needs to be careful to show them enough to sufficiently characterize them.

6 Obstacle: DreamWorks' Box Office Challenges In Recent Years

Solution: Build on the previous films' momentum

DreamWorks is at an all-time box office low, and the damage that has done to its reputation could make it difficult for How to Train Your Dragon to garner a large enough audience. DreamWorks has had a hard time in the 2020s, but then again, the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for all movie studios at the turn of the decade. Luckily, the movie industry has begun to bounce back over the last year, and How to Train Your Dragon's three animated films have all been extremely lucrative, so the live-action version just needs to play off that momentum and emphasize its theater-worthy aspects in its marketing campaign.

5 Obstacle: The Expense Of CGI Could Shorten The Story

Solution: Don't overspend on spectacles

CGI has changed the way movies are produced, creating limitless opportunities in film, but it remains an extremely expensive tool, especially in a movie that requires as much of it as How to Train Your Dragon. The concern about such hefty costs is that it could force the film to remove certain scenes that would be too expensive, thereby hurting the overall story. To overcome this issue, How to Train Your Dragon needs to plan its budget carefully and avoid overspending on the spectacular scenes. There should be some spectacles, but they can't be allowed to eat so much of the budget that the story has to be significantly cut.

4 Obstacle: How To Train Your Dragon's Expectations Could Be Too High To Live Up To

Solution: Stay as loyal to the original as possible

The success of the original How to Train Your Dragon movies is such that it may have already doomed the live-action version. The expectations for this adaptation will be sky-high considering the enormous audiences and consistent critical acclaim generated by the animated films. To overcome this, the live-action How to Train Your Dragon will have to keep its adaptation as loyal to the original as possible. The animated films created a winning formula, and if the live-action one can closely recreate that, it should be able to satisfy fans.

3 Obstacle: The Live-Action Dragons Could Be Too Scary For Kids & Too PG For Adults

Solution: Make the dragons intimidating but not terrifying

Another issue with live-action dragons is that adults and teens will expect an intimidation factor from the dragons, but they can't be too scary for kids to see them. This creates a fine line for How to Train Your Dragon to walk, and it could end up stranding the movie between age groups. The idea is that this film will appeal to multiple age groups, but that is no easy task. To avoid stranding itself between age groups, How to Train Your Dragon should subtly layer the film with adult themes and design the dragons to look intimidating, but not terrifying.

2 Obstacle: Recent Successes In Live-Action Adaptations Have Raised The Bar

Solution: Learn what made them successful and try to recreate it

Adapting famous animated films to live-action has become a common tactic of late, with Disney providing several examples of hugely popular movies of this kind. The Jungle Book and Alice in Wonderland are two excellent examples of the potential these adaptations have. Their success has raised the bar for transferring animated stories to live-action, which only heightens expectations for How to Train Your Dragon. The good news is that How to Train Your Dragon has plenty of recent successes in this field to learn from, so it can easily borrow some of their tactics and try to recreate their accomplishments.

1 Obstacle: How To Train Your Dragon Needs A Perfect Cast

Solution: Find young actors with diverse skillsets

In order to make a faithful adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon, there will need to be a similar blend of action, drama, and comedy. Much of this comes down to the script, but the real challenge is finding a cast that can carry all these elements naturally. The two casting choices that have already been made both seem sensible with Mason Thames set to portray Hiccup and Nico Parker as Astrid, but much depends on the other characters as well. The movie needs to cast actors who have diverse experience in multiple genres and can carry the dramatic moments as well as the comedic ones.