Vitals
- Products: How to Train Your Dragon
- Genres: Animated, Comedy, Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Voice Talent: America Ferrera, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Gerard Butler, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill
- Director: Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
- Studio: DreamWorks Animation
- Theatrical Release Date (US): March 26, 2010
- MPAA Rating Content Descriptors: PG
If you haven't already been charmed by the near-Pixarness of How to Train Your Dragon, you should at least be impressed strictly by its arithmetic, just this week retaking the top spot at the box office and hovering at an ever-rising $180 million in domestic ticket sales.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Dreamworks animated film is being earmarked for a sequel in 2013. No details yet on plot, but the original author, Cressida Cowell, already has seven young adult followups and one additional retelling of the first story called How to Train Your Viking. Assuming Dreamworks goes for the next entry, the film may be called How to Be a Pirate. Ironically, though, it's the lack of the word dragon in the title that would likely nix that idea while, just a few years ago, pirates would have been all the rage.
During the first film's pre-release press, directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois seemed pretty optimistic about returning for future Dragon installments. Both were directors of Lilo and Stich but were more or less poached from Disney after Sanders was kicked off directing duties on Bolt. Now that the box office score is tallied, it looks like the point goes to DreamWorks. Of course, this article isn't the first to praise Dragon's approximation of a Pixar film, so Disney can't be too upset.
