Latest in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn't about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysteri…

In the wake of Dreamworks Animation being purchased by Comcast, the third How to Train Your Dragon was a key part to relaunching the studio in the wake of Jeffrey Katzenberg at its new home with Universal Pictures. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World wraps up the relationship between dragon rider Hiccup and his…

After it debuted in 2010, DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon swept the board at the following year's Annie Awards. Four years later, the first sequel debuted in Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar in the Animated Feature category. This year’s entry, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, looks set…

For producer Bonnie Arnold, saying goodbye to the world of How to Train Your Dragon has been bittersweet. Bringing three films to life over the past 13 years, Arnold aimed to be as creatively bold with series closer The Hidden World as she had been with the prior two films, sticking to her guns with an ending that…

In the innovative Netflix animated film I Lost My Body, a severed hand skitters across the streets of Paris trying to reunite with its missing anatomical companion. Whether that hand winds up grasping an Oscar is up to Academy voters, in a year when a record 32 contenders qualified for the Best Animated Feature race. I…

DreamWorks Animation films How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and Abominable set out to tell a story of transformation, growth, and individuality as the characters embark on their perspective journeys. For How to Train Your Dragon 3, that journey has spanned over a decade. The final installment finds…

The evocative power of music is considered essential across the breadth of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking, but it may be most vital and potent in animation. The challenges of composing for the medium was front and center during the DreamWorks Animation panel at the recent The Contenders Los Angeles, which…

Over the last decade, writer/director Dean DeBlois has dedicated himself to one fantastical world with a trilogy of How to Train Your Dragon films, always striving to push creative boundaries—not least with the final film of the bunch, The Hidden World. The film picks up with Viking Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel)…

Note to would-be directors of animated features: get your composer involved from the start. That was one of the key observations from The Contenders L.A. DreamWorks Animation panel Saturday, that featured filmmaking talent behind How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and Abominable. "I try to put get [composer]…

“There’s a lot of sitting around watching YouTube cat and dog videos, and we try to inject into these dragons as many of the attributes we see in our own domestic pets as possible,” director Dean DeBlois said during Deadline’s The Contenders London event, where he discussed creating the mythical beasts in How to Train…

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World director Dean DeBlois came to The Contenders London with the third and final entry in the Oscar-nominated animated franchise, which debuted in 2010 and has since grossed $1.6B at the global box office. Adapted from the book series by British author Cressida Cowell, the latest…

UPDATE, writethru: Disney's Dumbo, the live-action adaptation of the beloved 1941 classic, grossed $71M at the international box office this weekend. Liftoff is below pre-opening projections which sources pegged in the $80M-$90M range for the Tim Burton-directed pic. The main issue here, which we noted in our preview…