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    The ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Star Mason Thames Is Still Freaking Out

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    Mason Thames was very, very nervous. The actor, then 15 years old, had arrived in London for another round of auditions on his quest to land the lead role in Universal’s live-action adaptation of “How to Train Your Dragon,” and the pressure was mounting.He had been a toddler when the original DreamWorks Animation film was released in 2010, and he grew up obsessing over the animated trilogy about Hiccup, a teenage Viking who befriends an injured dragon named Toothless. Now, the chance to play his childhood hero was within his grasp.As Thames fretted between chemistry readings with potential co-stars, Nico Parker, the actress who would eventually land the role of Hiccup’s love interest, Astrid, caught a glimpse of his anxious energy.“He was pacing back and forth, and my chest hurt from how cute he was,” Parker, who was then 18, recalled. “He was just the sweetest little angel; I can’t even put it into words.”Thames continued to be on edge as the two actors performed a scene together for the film’s executives. But when he delivered one of his scripted comedic lines, Parker broke character and burst out laughing, causing Thames to follow suit. Her flub, Thames said, instantly put him at ease and changed the course of the session.It wasn’t until after they’d both won the roles that he learned the truth: “She said she messed up on purpose to make me feel better because she saw how nervous I was,” Thames said. “That was the sweetest thing anybody could have ever done.” (Parker noted that she was also nervous. “I was just trying to hide it a bit more than he was.”)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inside Universal’s Big Bet on ‘How to Train Your Dragon’

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      In an era of skepticism around live-action remakes, Universal believes audiences will take flight with Hiccup and Toothless again.In 2020, Dean DeBlois publicly blasted live-action remakes of animated films as “lazy” studio endeavors.The director who, along with Chris Sanders, had made the 2002 Disney animated “Lilo & Stitch” and the 2010 DreamWorks Animation release “How to Train Your Dragon,” said that he viewed such remakes as “a missed opportunity to put something original into the world.”Then, two years later, DeBlois received a call from the Universal Pictures president, Peter Cramer, asking if he’d be interested in directing a live-action version of “How to Train Your Dragon.”“At the expense of seeming like a hypocrite, I thought, well, I’m either going to sit here and pout and watch somebody else do it,” DeBlois said in a video interview with The Times, “or I could jump in and shoulder the blame or help to change the narrative.”Now, as the live-action “Dragon” arrives in theaters on Friday, DeBlois is enthusiastically attached to the type of movie he formerly criticized.A lot could have gone wrong: DeBlois had never made a live-action feature before Universal put him in charge of the $150 million remake, and the genre as a whole is facing increased skepticism from audiences and studios alike. (Disney reportedly put its “Tangled” remake on hold indefinitely in the wake of underwhelming box office for “Snow White” this spring.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Review: The Return of Hiccup and Toothless

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      This live action remake of the 2010 animated film is religiously faithful to the original. The result is exhilarating at times, if somewhat mechanical.About halfway through “How to Train Your Dragon,” Hiccup, the unlikely hero hiding under a mop of teenage hair, hops onto the back of his newfound dragon friend, Toothless, and cautiously goes for their first ride. Soon, they’re soaring; they’re bumped around and perilously tumbling; they’re finding each other midair; and finally they’re shooting off at light speed, twisting impossibly through the craggy rock formations sprouting over the sea.It’s a moment of pure exhilaration, the first instance when you nod and momentarily understand the point of this remake — a live-action mirror of a big sequence from the 2010 animated film that adds visceral weight and big-screen grandeur to the original. By the film’s end, it’s one of the few scenes that genuinely justifies the entire conceit of this reimagining from Dean DeBlois, the franchise’s returning director.To be sure, this new iteration is entertaining, bears a sense of heart and brings a tight script of fantasy and friendship to life. It is, in short, all of the original, only too much so: Most of the good of this “Dragon” come directly from its source material, as DeBlois has almost religiously mimed his original creation without much daring or new dimension beyond mechanically translating it to an IMAX screen. For the faithful to a strong franchise, that is perhaps the best way to do it.This remake of the 2010 film comes just six years after the third and final installment of the animated trilogy, barely a blink of an eye when it comes to developing the nostalgia kick that tends to fuel live-action retreads. And yet, the movie is bringing to life a franchise that, far more than most animated films, has the pure DNA of a real-deal blockbuster: an immersive fantasy epic full of dragon fights and warmongering Vikings.Like its original, the new film begins by introducing us, mid-battle, to Berk, a remote island village that is in a perpetual war with dragons. When Hiccup (Mason Thames), the feckless son of the village chief, Stoic (Gerard Butler, reprising his role in the animated films), wounds a Night Fury, the deadliest of dragons, he develops a bond with the creature. He names him Toothless and comes to find him, and all dragons, to be more skittish dog than aggressive predator, a realization Hiccup struggles to translate to his people as their war turns ever more deadly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More