While it still hasn't been released online, the first teaser trailer for the live-action version of DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon is currently playing in select theaters. We'd imagine an official version is on the way, but for now, we have a leaked recording.
It will likely be taken down by the studio in due course. Watch it while you can, though, and you'll see that it features the fateful first meeting between Hiccup and Toothless and a first look at Gerard Butler reprising his role from the animated movie as Stoick.
It doesn't appear that the movie will veer too far away from what we saw in 2010; for some, this will come as good news and, for others, How to Train Your Dragon is going to be 2019's The Lion King all over again.
Overall, the visuals look impressive and Toothless is essentially a slightly more refined version of his cartoon counterpart (in terms of the design, there don't appear to be any noteable differences).
Butler recently spoke to Collider about working on the long-awaited How to Train Your Dragon remake:
"Yes, it was very cold and kind of miserable because we went at the worst time. It was December, or really starting in January. I had a hotel room that had glass right down by my bath, and for some reason, I had decided I was going to take ice baths every morning . So, at five in the morning, my [physical therapist] — because I'm like, 'I'm not going to put the ice in the bath,' — would come in and fill my bath with ice, and I would get in this ice bath, but outside it would be dark with wind blowing, soaking wet. You know how freezing it was. At least if you're doing an ice bath, and you're in LA it's a blue sky. This was like, 'I am going out into that.'"
"But I had seven layers, thick layers, and a thick beard, and then I had a kind of bearskin or wolfskin over it . It was heavy as sh-t. When I had my sword and my shield and the helmet, which was heavy, and all those layers with the clasps that went around, it was 90 pounds, my costume. I was, in the middle of the coldest day, soaking wet from sweat inside because it was like a furnace in there. So, I guess I had the benefit of... I was rarely cold while everybody else was like this. I was like, 'Yeah, my beard's coming off because of the sweat.' You gotta stick it back down. My eyebrows were coming off. I had to stick it down because I was sweating so much."
You can watch the leaked How to Train Your Dragon trailer below (via ComicBookMovie.com).
Universal Pictures has assembled an impressive cast for How to Train Your Dragon that includes Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, and Ruth Codd.
Dean DeBlois, who wrote and directed Lilo & Stitch and the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy alongside Chris Sanders helms this remake, possibly explaining reports that it's been described as a Lion King-style shot-for-shot adaptation following test screenings.
In the animated How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup, a young Viking who dreams of being a brave dragon killer, strikes up an unlikely friendship with one of the flying beasts after wounding it in battle. Together, Hiccup and his new friend - whom he dubs Toothless - must unite their cultures in a fight against a giant evil dragon known as the Red Death.
How to Train Your Dragon is set to be released in theaters on June 13, 2025.