June 8, 2025 • 39 mins
Dean hops on to talk directing both animated and live action How To Train Your Dragon films, movies that inspire him and how he really feels about live action adaptations.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm Dean DeBlois, the writer, director, and executive producer of
How To Train Your Dragon, and I'm I'm here on
get Wrecked with straw Hat Goofy.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Wake up? Did you time to go to work? All right?
Can we talk about go get it? Get it? Yeah?
Wake up? I get it that get it that goal
with everyone's saying that up next, it's not my father.
The vocals a goal of that making that hit us
so well that my lad is a movie the way
that role they saying, I'm people, baby, you know I'm
making everybody upset because we do the best.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
We don't and I know, gunning bread, gunning, get bread, running,
get bread, cunning, get bread, sink dunning bread.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What's going on? Guys? It's your boy, Judi Green aka
straw Had Goofy. You're a movie guy and I'm sitting
here with the director, writer, producer of both animated and
the live action How to Train Your Dragon, Dean DeBlois.
How are we doing, my man?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
We're doing well. We're doing well. It's day three here
in Orlando.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
We're in Orlando. We are at Epic Universe, which is
you know the opening of Burke, which is super surreal man, Like,
how are you feeling?
Speaker 4 (01:04):
It's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's so crazy because it's not even an interpretation of Burke.
It's literally the Burke that we created for How to
Train Your Dragon two.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, so like our production designer Pierre Olivier vang Song
those are his designs, Oh my god, and all that
concept are like they obviously purposed it for a theme park,
but as you walk around, it's so faithful to the
animated movie.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It feels that way, right, Like as someone who's like
a massive fan of watching all the movies multiple times,
walking in like and no exaggeration, my jaw dropped because
you just feel like you're walking right into that world.
And especially like you know, I visit you at the
in the set all the way out in the Belfast
and saw like you guys recreating that and live action.
So I was kind of like, yeah, it feels like
(01:47):
home in a sense, right, Like it's really cool to
like live in it again. Yeah, And I saw you
there yesterday and I just got to ask you, like,
how is it now fifteen years past like the original
animated film and now you have the live action film
coming out and now you have this actual park that
people can go to and experience. Is it? How surreal
is it seeing something that you worked so hard on?
(02:09):
Probably wondering I hope people like this to now seeing Oh,
here's your definite answer. People are enjoying it right in
front of your eyes. How is that experience?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It messes with your head a little bit, right, because
so much of I always subscribe to the philosophy that
you should if you're writing stories and making movies, make
the movie you want to see. Don't try to second
guess your audience, like because there are so many questions
about who's this for, what's your demographic? You know, I
just say I want to I'm going to work on
(02:39):
a movie I want to see, and hopefully the people
that I'm working with agree. You know, we're all making
the same movie, and you don't know if it's going
to be embraced, and you don't know to what extent
it will be. So in this case, like this Quirky
Little Story, which is an interpretation of Crescova Howell's books,
not literally that story, but our own version. It had
(03:01):
kind of a bumpy start as it went out into
the world for that first movie, but really even within
its theatrical run, it came back to number one.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And stayed there for four weeks.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And so I think it's a word of mouth thing,
and people do see wonder in it, and they see
wish fulfillment, and it's been embraced and held close to
people's hearts for you know, for all of these years.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Now we're talking about fifteen years later.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You know, to speak to that again, massive fan of
the franchise, you're a massive fan of you, like you
guys can hear on the podcast right now. My voice
is gone. It's over. And a lot of that had
to do with screaming on hiccups like lighter Ride, screaming
at the I can't stop saying epic, guys. I'm sorry,
but it was epic. The fireworks spectacular that was happening
(03:48):
last night, and the whole time I was waiting play
that John pal Scort, play that test Stride, play it,
play it, play it, And you guys did the right thing. Universal,
Thank you so much. Yeah, they played it at the
end is one of the big finales, and my voice
was out the door. I said, yes, screaming, and I said, dang,
I got to talk to Dean tomorrow about this. So
I'm gonna blame you for this right now.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
I'll take it. I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I thought it was amazing that John Powell was here.
He was here, Yeah, he's John pell is here. I
think he's still here today. So we have Cress and
A Cowell, author of the books This Is Her World,
brought to life John Powell, who wrote one of the
most amazing scores of all time, walking around in the park,
you know, hearing his music being played for.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
The Yeah, I told you, I didn't bring my glasses
and I couldn't see anybody. Now, I wish I would
have brought it because maybe who knows how many times
I walk by John. I'm sorry, I'm having a minute, Trevor,
I'm blaming you as well. Is Jerry in here. I'm
blaming Jerry too. Maybe if he's still here, I'm just
gonna run around and look for him.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
He's not the easiest guy to identify. Yeah, because Danny
Elfman's here too, It's easy to spot.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
A friend of mine said she saw him because you know,
he did the music for a Dark Universe as well,
And she was like, she saw him, and I got
instantly jealous and I'm like, yours is Danny Elfman. Mine
was John Powell. I wish I could have had the
John power. And who knows, maybe today I might make
that chance. I think maybe I'll open the door and
he's like, hey, Dan, let's go have lunch. And I'm like,
my prayers have been answered. But yeah, but yeah, it's
(05:22):
gotta be surreal. Just kind of like seeing the love
for this movie like kind of take shape and form,
and you know, watching the franchise just kind of like
evolve and grow with people has kind of been really great.
And I love the coming of age element of the
habitrarian dragon story. Coming of age is one of my
favorite like genres of film ever. And I just thought
about this today and I felt dumb thinking about it.
(05:42):
I was sitting there getting ready to come see you,
and I was thinking to myself, like, huh. In that
first movie, it's literally about Hiccup learning to spread his wings, right,
and he quite literally does that with a dragon. And
I had I had this like and I wanted to
talk to you about that. Where what is that in
kind of like the pre production like writing of it all,
(06:03):
where you said, this is a coming of age story
about a kid spreading his wings. What was kind of like,
like you said, the inspiration of this is how we
want to tell this story in this way.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
M yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I mean, in the first film, we were just trying
to make a movie that worked with a very tight
deadline in animation terms, fifteen months is not very much
to go from beginning to delivery, and that's what we had.
So we were really we were trying to tell the
best sort of father son story we could tell, you know,
where the kid has to come to the realization that
(06:37):
he doesn't have to change who he is, he can
actually let the world change around him.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
And so that was mostly our goal.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
But by the time I was tasked with thinking about
a second movie, I said, let's think of three.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
We can do a three act coming of age, and
literally the.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Second movie starts with him spreading his wings, flying alongside Toothless.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, you know, I gotta say the second film in
the franchise is my favorite. I feel that the themes
are deeper, they're more mature, like obviously, and then you
almost have a passing of Baton moment right where I
think it's a very mature thing to have. Sorry, spoilers
for a movie that's what twenty fourteen, that's eleven years old.
You know, to have Hiccup like, you know, murder his
(07:22):
father and then like his father is still saying like
it's not your fault, it's not his fault. Toothless, So yeah, Toothless, Yeah, sorry,
Hiccup didn't do it. Hiccup didn't do it. Guys, it
was Toothless who did it. But yeah, to have like
Toothless like murder his father and then you know, for
his father to just kind of be like, this isn't
your fault, and then Hiccup realizing, Yo, it's not Hiccup's fault,
it's not Toothless's fault. It's not my fault. Let's move
(07:43):
on with his friendship, and then he kind of like
takes over that chief role. It was like to see
that happen in that franchise. It kind of took me
aback because I remember watching that first movie and I
remember being seventeen when it came out, and so I'm
like feeling a lot like just going like I don't
know where I'm going with my life. I don't know
what's going to make me me. I don't know what
(08:04):
that thing is. And then in the second movie, it's
like where he like realizes where he stands in the world.
And so I find the second movie to be like,
in my opinion, like the best in that trilogy because
it's just like the perfect amalgamation of like the first one,
the third one, and then it's like everything just meets
in the middle there. I'm curious to know, like, what
was your favorite How to Train Your Dragon to work on?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I agree, I think it was the second one because
the first movie was a pretty you know, a hurried pace,
a rush to the finish.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
We're really proud of it.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
But the second movie I had time to kind of
really think about it. And when you're starting from a
place of a character who has achieved everything they wanted, right, I, oh, yeah,
has his father's love, he as, the acceptance of the community,
the girlfriend, the super cool dragon like kick ups, a
character without a problem at the end of the first movie.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
So the idea of advancing the clock and going to
the next right of passage, yes, you.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Know that we can all relate to, which is like
stepping out of childhood and stepping into adulthood. Yes, leaving
behind the you know that kind of youthful abandoned and
freedom of youth and taking on the consequence and the
pressure of adulthood. That that felt like a universal crossroads
to play with, and it meant a lot to me
(09:19):
personally as well, because I lost my dad when when
I was nineteen, So it's like that that idea of
carrying the mantle forward of those parental figures, you know,
in your youthful like newbie, rookie adult stage right right.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I think like the first indicator of that was that
I still this stays my mind ever since I saw it,
that first teaser for How to Tener Your Dragon two
where it's the flying side by side with two flissane
and the entire time Hicco's face is covered right, and
then the very it's like you have the title, you
have the music, it swells, you think the trailer is over,
(09:54):
and then Hiccup takes off his helmet and you see
he's like older, he's like more. You could tell he
just like a man like this is like Hiccup as
like he like like the grown up Hiccup that like
he's gonna step into That's what maybe go WHOA, like
we're not kids anymore? Like this is this is it?
And then like to hear you talk about kind of
like the next phase of life, like stepping into adulthood.
(10:16):
I feel like that trailer, that teaser captured that perfectly,
and so I want to know, like was that teas
or something you had input on, because I know sometimes
marketing and you know the director can kind of like
work parallel and not like together. But was that something
that you kind of said, this is what we need
to show or was that just something.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Now I can't remember exactly, but I definitely endorse the
idea of, you know, play up the tease, like make
make the world and the movie feel cool, yeah, and
then unveil our hero and you see that he's grown,
and because that's not something that's done in an animation
very often where you see characters age.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
So that would I definitely endorse that direction.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I did not endorse they reveal of the mother and
trailer too, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Like come on, obviously, Like I was watching that and
like I was just kind of like, this would have
been so much better because like I could tell directing
the film that that was supposed to be a moment
that was like gonna like make every one in the
audience call what like almost like a Darth Vader moment, right,
like that I'm your father movement, but like in a
loving way because I just remember Gober's like expression of
(11:18):
him walking out and saying, yeah, you might want to
take that one, buddy, Like I was like, no, having
the knowledge of going, I know who he's referring to. Yeah,
it does. It does kind of like take that away.
But still watching that film, seeing the relationship between her
and Stoic and then them losing Stoic and then her
and Hiccup, and how they're very similar in that making sense,
(11:40):
it was still so well done that even though like
we knew the reveal, we still have much more of
a meal to like eaven with that. So even though
like we both agree on that, I was like, it's
still a great kind of like you know, execution of
that idea. I really want to talk about, like you know,
you being very adamant that it was you that was
(12:00):
the Hilm this live action remake, right because you know,
we've gotten so many live action remake from so many
different studios of their animated works and you know, met
with like varying degrees of like reception right. Some people go, yeah,
my childhood is coming back, and some people are saying,
don't mess with such a good thing. But I find
you're the first one amongst all of this who did
(12:22):
the animated version and they did the live action version.
So talk to me about kind of like making that
decision and saying like, hey, this is my thing. I
want to be the one to helm miss.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Well, it comes on the heels of me rather publicly
saying I don't like this trend. I don't like animated
movies being remade into live action films in general, because
sometimes they feel a little soulless and they feel like
replacements of the animated movie and being you know, coming
from an animation background, right, take offense to that a
little bit. It's like you're undermining our art form. But
(12:55):
when it's well done, then I think there could be
merit to it. And when I you know, when Universal
was talking about kicking the tires on a live action
reimagining of How to Train Your Dragon, my first response was,
I don't want to see someone else's version of it,
Like I know these characters, I know where the heart is,
and I know this world like out of a protective instinct.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Be like I wanted to throw my hat in the
ring and say, if you're going to do it, then
let me do it, because I know where we could
go further, and I know what we could embellish, and
where we could deepen the mythology and give richness to
some of the characters that we were you know, that
we hadn't served quite as strongly in the animated version,
and and just find moments to get even more immersive
(13:42):
with the cinematography and the action and the flying. I
could see things that would be additive because we talked
about them when we were making the animated movie, and
like if we had more time and we had more
money and we had more Roger Deakins, like we could
really lean into this this idea of like making you
feel like you're in the saddle with him cup, you know.
And but there there were you know, there were characters
(14:03):
that were underserved.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
There was like it was out of necessity.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
We were making a trim tight movie with the money,
the resources that were left, in the time that was left.
And in this case we could indulge some of those
things and expand on them and explain why these warriors
are there in the first place, you know, explain a
little bit of asterids acrimonious relationship with Pickup, where she
comes from and what she's been fighting for, and that
really like kind of deepen the relationship with the father
(14:27):
and the son, and like there's a love there. There's
a but it's a push and pull of expectation, and
I think there were it's a myriad of subtle ways,
but I could see additive elements that wouldn't just be
adding fat back on to what had become a lean structure.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, and see that just answered my next question of
like what do you think makes a good or the
right way to do a live action remake of an
animated film, because I find, like you know, animated films
they accomplish things that you can't do a live action right,
Like it it allows your imagination to kind of like
run wild, and you can do these things that are
just almost impossible to do. So then when you take
something that's done that and then you put it in live action,
(15:06):
like you know, someone can argue like, oh, you're kind
of stripping away like you said, like the magic of
the animation and the heart and everything like that. But
you know, there are like those few exceptions that do
kind of recapture and add and kind of give you
another look. And I do feel like this How to
Train Your Dragon, having seen it twice in a live action,
all those things that you mentioned at it being additive.
I love Hiccup in Stoic's relationship arguably better in this film,
(15:31):
because I don't know if it's seeing Gerard Butler's like
face and seeing like the desperation for wanting his son
to be the best that he can be, or like
seeing Hiccup just being like I don't know if I
could do like it's it was just something that felt
that hit me a little harder as someone who didn't
grow up without his dad as well, Right, And so
I really like that element. Love what was happening with
(15:53):
Asterid and kind of like expanding on how Burke came
to be, like how their amalgamation of a bunch of
different vikings without spoiling much. I was like, these are
things that obviously you couldn't get to an animation, or
I could tell you wished that you could, yeah, and
to like kind of like explain that in such an
organic and natural way, like I felt the additives in
that I did, and I'm just like, as someone who
(16:15):
saw twice, I was like I got it, Like I
get this a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And the hope is that, like if you watch it
and you think, nah, I like the animation better, great, right,
Like I'm super I'm super proud of those movies. So
if that's it's sort of levels of wonder, Like I
think this is a.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Bit more ground I like the way you said that. Yeah,
but it's more photo real, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
So if you if you want a little bit of
that wish fulfillment of like what would it be to
actually interact with these dragons, right and and and get
on the back and fly one, I think we were
delivering a little more of that in a live action.
If you love the wonder of the world and the
whimsy and kind of the larger than life presentation of
a world with this with this little hiccup character trying
(16:54):
to navigate it, that's what's reflected in the theme park,
and that's definitely what's reflected in the movies, right, animated movies,
And so hopefully there's something to love about all of them,
but it's it's definitely not meant to be a replacement
of the animal.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Of course, And I feel like a lot of fans,
you know, at least the more hardcore ones on that spectrum,
just can't like really see that, Like they just see, oh,
this is replacing, like the one that I've loved my
entire life is now ruined. But it's like it's not,
it's it's there. You can go ahead and check it out,
and like now you just have like two options. And
a lot of times, like you know, I've seen live
(17:28):
action remakes that I didn't necessarily care for. I would
just say, Okay, I'll watch an animated version, but my
daughter loves the live action remakes, right, And so it's
like that's who it's for.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It's the level of wonder as you were saying, yeah,
it is.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It is very subjective, and I think that that's film though, right.
But sometimes you sense the lack of love in some
of the remakes almost you can sense the cynicism and
the paycheck. And like I think when you watch our movie,
whether you prefer the animated one or you like this one,
or you can you can sense the love. There's like
(18:02):
it's in the craftsmanship, it's in the performances, it's like
people gave their all and and it's up to the
public to decide whether it's for them or not.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Right exactly, I really again love that you came back.
Love that Dar Butler came back, extra love that John
Powell came back. And I feel like it's it's you
guys coming back to do something that was amazing when
we first saw it, and you know, in my opinion,
it's amazing when we see it again. Like what was
(18:32):
that phone call, like when you recast Draw Butler? Was
that a no brainer? Did he do the same thing
you said did and said there's nobody else that could
play this character, please let me do it. Like, how
did those conversations work out bringing everyone back?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well, that one's a bit of an interesting story because
obviously he was He would be the perfect age, perfect character,
perfect casting for the character. And from the start, I thought, well,
of course you're room back Gerard Butler. He's the one
who hasn't aged out of his role. He's the co
creator of the role. You know, he brought so much
to it in the animated movie. And the response I
(19:06):
got back from the casting director was sorry, he's just
like he's booked with three to three, three, back to
back movies.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
You're not going to get them, like, he has no
window of opportunity. I'm like, what, Like, well, then we
have to delay the movie. We can't make it with
that Gerard.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Then, but it became this reality of like, okay, you
can't have Gerards, So who do you want? And we
went through this for a while, you know, and it's
a very short list when you think about it. Who
could fill those boots on? I can't, I can't talk
about it, but but yeah, we went down the road
and we got really close to securing who would be
the next Stoic And the actors strike.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Happened the after Strike of twenty.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Twenty three, and everything got thrown into disarray and we
didn't know how long it was going to last, and
projects were going on hold and actors were being shuffled
onto different projects in anticipation of the strike ending. By
the time it actually ended, I asked, again, is is
Jerry Butler available? Like, no, He's going right from this
one on to the next one. And so I was
(20:08):
sitting in a in a hotel, an airport hotel.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
I'd missed a flight.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I'm just sitting on my bed thinking like, we're about
to start shooting the movie and we don't know who
Stoke is going to be. And I just sent a
text to Gerard and I said, hey, I really tried,
but you know, you're just not available and feel so
weird that we're gonna have to go down the road
with someone else.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
But just know that I tried my best. And he
texted back right away and he said, what are you
talking about?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
He's like, my, we're doing scriptwork on this next movie.
It's being pushed for a month or two. When are
you shooting? Like I could be thereund in face with
a couple of texts we had Gerard Butler back on
the movie.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
That's that's that's crazy to know that he wasn't even
aware that he is up for this. He's probably thinking like, oh,
they're doing another how To Dream Dragon.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
He didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Oh didn't know there was another one.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
No, he didn't know that we were making our live accent.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
That's actually pretty hilarious. Of course I'll do it. Let's okay,
that is so funny. What about John? Like? Was that
Like I feel like that was a no brainer right, Like,
as soon as I found out there was a live
actually happening. Yeah, I said, just give me John, give
me Dean. I'm cool like Youah.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, the Universal called me. They called Chris Sanders as well.
Chris was pretty deep into the wild robot right, so
that timing wise wasn't going to work out for us
to work together on it. But as soon as as
soon as I said, I want to throw my hat
in the ring, and they said, okay, cool. First call
with John John Powell, I said, talk me out of
this if you think it's a bad idea, Like, I
don't want to desecrate the thing that we've made together.
(21:36):
But he said he came at it from the same perspective.
He said, if you do it right, you're going to
speak to the nostalgia of your current fans, and you're
going to open it up for a whole new batch
of fans. You know, maybe kids that are coming like
your fans have grown up, they might have families of
their own. There are a bunch of people who might
not have seen the animated movie.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I haven't set my old daughter now since that first
one came out.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, he said, so, so I think it casts a
wider net. And if you're in I'm in So that
gave me great confidence to know that John was keen
to do it and recognizing the risks as well.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You know, yeah, yeah, did Jay Brows show give you
a call and say, hey, you know I got to
come back and do it too.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
It's funny, j Jay's the opposite. JJ's like happy to
be left alone. But you know, I did cut a
knock on his door at one point and I just said,
what do you think of the casting of these of
these candidates. I did the same with America. I said,
here are our favorite asterids. Do you have an opinion?
You know, And it's funny she wienth in on. She
actually came back and said, all of your astids are great,
(22:35):
but you got to go with Mason Thames.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Oh yeah, let's let's table this one. That guy.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
That guy said, for what it's worth, he's he's the
most hiccupy hiccup you've got.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Honestly, yes, honestly, yes, Like especially, you know, I have
a whole thing about Mason coming in, Like I went
to his screening in La What was that last week?
Ball was that last week? And that dude is just
a star in the making. He's so charismatic, but he's
also like you know, like very like personable in like
a kind of doorkeyway, a little bit of a dork
and so like you can believe the Hiccup coming out
(23:06):
of him.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
But one of my favorite things and qualities about Hiccup
and the story of How to Train Your Dragon is
that he has these moments of obviously he's bumbling, he
doesn't know what to do, he's kind of like clanky
and you know, clunky, but then there's moments where he
has to resolve, right, Like one of my favorite moments
and I call it and I call it Hiccup's first persuasion,
right where it's like, as a chief, you got to
(23:27):
be the one to kind of like galvanize your your
warriors and your vikings. And throughout the whole movie, like
nobody's listening to Hiccup, nobody's trying to hear what he
has to say. But then there's a moment where the
first person he has to convince is Asterisk, where she
gives him this coka, mamie, like you're gonna do all
of this to protect your pet dragon. You're gonna go
back on hundreds of years of tradition to do this,
(23:49):
and the way he says, yes, it's like his first
time actually being like I know what I want to
do in this moment, and she is so like taking
it back, she goes okay, right, And I find that
Mason has that quality of being like, I don't know
what I'm doing with what's going on, so when he
needs to like lock in, he locks in.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Talk to me about finding Mason, And what was that
quality for you that kind of made it besides America
for that made you say that's our Hiccup.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, Well, Lucy Bevan was our casting director, and she
pulled together so many great candidates for Hiccup, and a
lot of them shared the same backstory, which is they
grew up with these movies and they identified with Hiccup,
and so he was a very meaningful character to them
growing up. And I'm talking about at least ten possible hiccups.
(24:41):
Mason was one of them.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
But you can't it's not fair to that I did it.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
But I do think that Mason just naturally gravitated toward
the top because he has not only a love of
how to train your dragon and love the character dressed
up as him, for Halloween, and you know, but he
is at that he was at that perfect age, Like
he auditioned when he was fifteen, and he just was,
you know, kind of getting used to his growing body.
(25:12):
So he had a little bit of that teenage awkwardness
and vulnerability and charm and self deprecating humor, Like he
walked into the room with it. And so when we
would put him in combination with our favorite Asterid candidates,
just sparks would fly, especially with Nico, like because it
was the chemistry and the pauses between dialogue where you
really get the sense that they're listening to one one
another and kind of forming judgment and all that nervousness
(25:36):
you're talking about just came through. So yeah, we had
we had great candidates, but ultimately Mason was just he
just he didn't have to come in performing hiccup.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
He just was right right right, and you feel the
hiccup in the film, like you know, I'm so I'm
trying really hard not to talk about the test strives
scene because I like to I like to look at
little things. I like to look at little things and
performances in like you know, framings and things like that,
and one of my favorite moments in the animated one.
(26:06):
And I'm going to talk about the live action.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Can I say one thing before about Mason that was
really defining for me actually paid off on set. He
wasn't aping j Barroshell, he wasn't trying to get the
physical kind of comedy or Jay's tone into it.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
He sort of.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Brought his own specificity. And there was there was a
scene that we were shooting. It was in the training arena.
It's the day where Hiccup's supposed to go out there
and kill a monster s nightmare in front of everyone,
and Stoic's making you know, he's sort of basically doing
like a wedding speech, you know, kind of making light
back up and who would have thought?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
My son?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
And as he's poking jabs at Hiccup and he's got
the crowd laughing, we put the camera on Mason and
we just like just slightly kind of rock back and
forth and watching the wounds, you know, hit his face
and like, for me, that's the defining of a feature
of Hiccup is not he can withstand the mockery and
(27:02):
the ridicule. Yeah, and still you know, still have like
the strength of character to walk out there and stand
by his convictions, and it's the way Mason played that.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Yeah, they gave it this extra layer of depth.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Because that was the first shot in the first trailer.
I remember these things. It's like at that moment where
he's looking and it's our first kind of like introduction
to this new Hiccup and I see everything that you're
talking about right there.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, so yeah, it's it's the it's the one time
where I really act like I teared up I was
watching I was watching it. I can feel like tears
running down my face because like I was that kid.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
Yeah, I know what that's like. So I think that's.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
What resonates with outsiders, you know, anyone who's like not
a cookie cutter of what society wants you to be.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yeah, you can relate to that aspect of Hiccup.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I think it tells you that you still can grow, right,
you know. It's yeah, I feel like whenever we're teenagers,
it feels like we feel stuck and whatever is happening
in our lives. And you know, I have friends with
like teenage kids and be like they're so, oh, I
don't know where I'm going with my life, Like everything's over.
Everything's over, And I'm like, oh are you sixteen? Like
(28:08):
even like twenty five year old friends, like twenty five,
you still got twenty more to go, man, just like
just keep trucking right, But again, no, it's fine. But anyway,
I love these tangents, like like I can go off
on a million different tangents and still come back. But yeah,
I feel like a lot of people when they see
this new test drive sequence are going to like really
(28:30):
lock into this film and fall in love with his
version of pickup. Because I don't want to again try
not to spoil, but my favorite moment in the animated
one is where him and Toothless are falling and they're
about to hit the rocks and he's trying to look
at the cheek sheet and he looks at he looks there,
He looks there, he looks there, and then he says,
screw it. He tosses it. I feel like the equivalent
(28:52):
in this live action It made me tear up just
as much as it did in the animated version because
seeing like Mason's face and seeing that determination of it's
now or never right and it it gives you a
different feeling than what I saw in it, right. I
was just like, God, I want to fly Dragon now,
like like one of those moments in my life where
(29:13):
I just said screw it, threw away the safety guards.
It just went full tilt into something And honestly that's
how we ended up with this podcast. But you know
that's it's it's it's it's that relatability that like I
see in that that I take with me in like
my everyday life. Right. So I just got the ten minute.
I got two big things to ask you, Okay. One
(29:34):
you and Chris Sanders. I want to say you're best friends.
I want to like say like you.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Guys are good friends.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, right, And you know you guys have worked on
like Leland Stitch and then you worked on like you
had a train of Dragon together. You just mentioned that,
you know, there was a call to Chris to do this. Ye.
Was there a conversation that you two had recently seeing
as he just had the Wild Robot, you had this
going on, he has a live action movie coming out
to something you guys both have done and now you
have this. What was that conversation like if you've had it,
(30:02):
was it like a reflection? Was it just kind of like,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It's an interesting conversation because we, to Universal's credit, they
approached me first and they said, we're thinking about a
live action version of this.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
You know, what do you think? And Chris, what do
you think?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And it gave us the opportunity to say, if you're
going to do it, then hey over here right like.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
That.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I give Universals so much props for that, because that's
not what happened on the Disney side, you know, like
they didn't they didn't come to either of us.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
They came Chris to voice it.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, so it's.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Like, for better or worse, it might be a better
movie for it.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
I haven't seen the movie and.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I think there's there's just something about,
you know, having been part of the birth of something
that's carried forward. That's that's you know, that is part
of pop culture and it's part of people's childhoods lives,
and some people are obsessive about these properties where they're
(31:03):
stitch or how to train your Dragon, And to us,
it's still we still wanted to make a movie that
was kind of personal and quirky and with our humor
and our sense of wonder and and it's wonderful to
see it be embraced by the world, right.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Right, Okay, so I lie because we have a lot,
we have ten minutes, and that was a good answer.
But I have two things I want to ask.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
That's okay, all right, So anywhere to go?
Speaker 1 (31:24):
So I the name of that show is called get Wrecked, right,
and the reason why I call it that. So I
feel like you can learn a lot about people based
off of their favorite movies, right, And I feel like
movies make us who we are at the end of
the day. So I wanted to know, is there a
movie that you could recommend me that changed your brain
chemistry when you first saw it?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, there are two of them, but I think Harold
and Maud.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Is the most.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I love Harold and Mom. Yeah, yeah, I saw that
in the film class like a long ago.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Yeah. To me, it was like I watched that.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I watched that movie at the right point in my
life where, you know, kind of the pursuit of the
important stuff and the rejection of the of the tedious mundane.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
It's like it was such a good lesson to half.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
And the other one for me is Dead Poets Society.
It really caused me to pivot. It caused me to
like think about living a life with purpose. Yeah, you know,
and what can what can you put into the world,
Like what is your you know, what is your verse
going to be?
Speaker 4 (32:21):
In the great story? Like that? That resonated with me.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, yeah, I see. I So I've had someone similar
to Robin Williams a Dead Poet with Society at different
points in my school going career. You would say, I
had this one teacher in middle school. His name was
mister May and he he walks in and he says,
I'm gonna Dead Poet Society all of you guys, and
we were like what, Like, you know, we're just a
bunch of kids from compete. We're like, what is that?
(32:45):
And he says, oh, oh, you don't know what that is.
And so he basically said, first bit of homework, go home,
watch a Dead Poet with Society. We go home. At
least I go home and I watch it because I'm like, hey,
do we have this movie? Apparently my grandmother had it
on VHS, so pop in watch it and I'm just
kind of like, wow, this is like a film about like,
you know, a teacher and these kids and he's teaching
(33:06):
these kids to be like young men and think deeply
about the world and all these type of things. And
as a kid going to a confident where there's so
many limited options out there, that was very important for
me to see, right. And So going back to school, like,
I'm kind of jazzed up, I'm like, oh, he's a boy.
The I got this teacher who's basically my Robin Williams
in this situation. He's gonna teach me about like art
and poetry and love and life and everything's gonna go great.
(33:26):
Nobody else watched that movie coming back to school of
that day, and I think in many ways that was
like my uh introduction to the love of film, right, Like,
you know, that was a you know I say a
lot of times it's Spider Man two. You know, Spider
Man two was the first movie I saw that like
made me think more deeply about movies. The Dead Post
Society was one of the ones that made me think
(33:47):
more deeply about life after that. Yeah, So I think
it's funny that you actually said.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
That, And it's also interesting to hear it from your
perspective because I kind of understand why nobody else watched
the movie because it is like I want watched it
again on the plane, and like I became immediately aware
of how this is just a bunch of like really
privileged white folks right being you know, taught in some
expensive academy, you know, art and life and love. And
(34:14):
I'm like, they miss an opportunity to sort of have
this speak to you know, a wider breadth of humanity.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, I meant, I mean, listen, there's always remakes that
can make that happen, right, And I think that post
society is something you could definitely do in this day,
and it's just don't make it like white, savory and
type of way. But also I got to say this,
especially since like we're at Universal and like they love
Back to the Future. I love me some Back to
the Future. And uh, you know how people say, like
(34:45):
that's an untouchable like movie, like don't remake it. I've
always said that if you're going to remake Back to
the Future, do it with the black Man, like, because
I'm going back in time to that time period creates
a whole new layer of a film, And I feel
like that's the only way that you can kind of
like accomplish that, because that's a way of like being
additive and kind of like, you know, telling a whole
new story. Yeah, okay, I love those films. This is
(35:08):
the last leg of the episode. Are you ready?
Speaker 4 (35:10):
I am all right?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
So are you aware of this is gonna sound dumb,
but it's gonna rap back around. Are you aware of
Mount Rushmore?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
I'm aware of it.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yes. So since we are talking about DreamWorks and like
you know, you're a director of multiple dream Works animated films,
I need you to give me your Mount Rushmore DreamWorks
animated films right now. I'll give you mine and you
can give me yours. I don't know if you've already
had your skewed up.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
All right, So we were talking about characters.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Oh, we're talking about movies, like movies, movies all right.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Well I'd put Dragon in there, I'd put Kung Fu Panda.
Mm hmm, i put Shrek in there.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
So far we're in step and this is where it
gets tricky.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
L I really like guardians.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Give give me some, give me some thank you say.
I love Rise to the Guardians so much and to
hear you say that, like it's all people don't talk
about it enough. And I made it a point that
every time Christmas and the holidays were all around, I'm like,
throw all Rise to the Guardians. I make whole videos
I say it's Rise of the Guardians style. So dude,
thank you for that.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
You welcome.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Okay, great, So is that on your official like Mount Rushmore.
People are gonna watch this to say this guy's based
That's what the kids are saying. They're gonna I don't
know if they're still saying that, but they're gonna say
this guy's got the aura whatever whatever your kids are
gonna say. Okay, So now see this is where it's
hard for me because you just reminded me of Guardians
and I love Guardians. But here's my Mount Rushmore. How
(36:40):
to Train your Dragon is up there. Uh, you could
interchange like one or two I say, like franchise to
Be Safe, Kung Fu pandam Threk. We're right there with
each other. But like, the first thing I wrote down
was Prince of Egypt. M That was the first thing
I wrote down, because I feel like that's another one
that people have forgot about, like especially since like you know,
two D Animation is like kind of.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Movie that started DreamWorks.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It's the movie that started DreamWorks and like what other
movie a you're gonna find where you have Whitney Houston
and Mariah Carey singing a song together. It's beautiful, right,
And as someone who grew up in a Christian household,
that was like on repeat. Yeah, and you know, as
I kind of like grew older, you know, still very
much Christian, like watching a movie without the Christian goggles
and Sunday School, it's still a great movie. Like overall, yeah,
(37:25):
but like you know, if I you know, I would
say like Prince of Egypt, Rise of the Guardians, the
Wild Robot, Like sorry, Chris, I want to put up there,
but I'm like, I don't want to give it too soon.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Oh man, Right, I forgot about the Wild Robot.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I would have I would have put it in there.
I probably would have put it in there in place
of Shrek.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
I forgot for a moment.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah, I will put it in there. And I know,
like people, and I'm not doing this because of anticipation
what the comments are gonna say. But I gotta be
careful of like recency bias. Right. I know it's a
great film. I know it's fantastic and I know I'm
gonna love it ten years from now, but right now,
I'm like, Okay, let me hold my ped on, my
Prince of Egypt, let me hold pedal my Rise to
the Guardians. Yeah, so, Prince of Va Rise to the Guardians.
The Wild Robot, there was one Puss and boost the
(38:04):
Last Wish.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, well, pushing boots to.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
The Last Wish also deserves to be on that spot.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
I feel like, actually they've been knocking it out of
the park recently. Oh, absolutely, Last Wish and Wild Robot.
And I heard Bad Guys Too is really good guys.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Oh my god, So oh you heard it was good
because I love bad guys again, Okay, not bias at all,
not bias at all, but I do think it's gonna
be good because I love bad guys, right, And so yeah,
it's at this point and I think we're very fortunate
enough to have an embarrassment of riches when it comes
to dream where Santi made films where back to back
to back, we've had great outings, right, and I'm glad
(38:39):
that this Mount Rushmore is Like, I'm happy that it's
easy for you, because you just said, Rise of Guardian
is so easy but for me, like I'm I'm gonna
probably stay true to Prince of Egypt right now. But
you're just reminding me of like you know, the rises,
you know, the wild robots, and it's hard, but I'm glad.
We'll see what the people say in the comments about that.
(38:59):
I can't wait see what other people's like Mount rushmorees
are But dude, that is the end of the show.
And thank you so much for talking to me about Dude,
this is a lot of fun. We gotta do it
again sometime. I know you're super busy and.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Whatnot, but no, listen, I'll always make time for you.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
You heard it, guys. You heard that, Like I don't
have to say anything else. Thank you, guys. This is
Dean Deblad, the director, writer, producer of live action and
animated How to Train Your Dragon. Thank you so much
for watching. Make sure you guys catch this episode first
on substack make sure you support us there, but then
it will be out on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, wherever you
watch or listen to your podcast at I am Straw
(39:35):
had goofy and can I be your movie guy.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I'm Dean DeBlois, the writer, director, and executive producer of
How To Train Your Dragon, and I'm I'm here on
get Wrecked with straw Hat Goofy.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Wake up? Did you time to go to work? All right?
Can we talk about go get it? Get it? Yeah?
Wake up? I get it that get it that goal
with everyone's saying that up next, it's not my father.
The vocals a goal of that making that hit us
so well that my lad is a movie the way
that role they saying, I'm people, baby, you know I'm
making everybody upset because we do the best.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
We don't and I know, gunning bread, gunning, get bread, running,
get bread, cunning, get bread, sink dunning bread.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
What's going on? Guys? It's your boy, Judi Green aka
straw Had Goofy. You're a movie guy and I'm sitting
here with the director, writer, producer of both animated and
the live action How to Train Your Dragon, Dean DeBlois.
How are we doing, my man?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
We're doing well. We're doing well. It's day three here
in Orlando.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
We're in Orlando. We are at Epic Universe, which is
you know the opening of Burke, which is super surreal man, Like,
how are you feeling?
Speaker 4 (01:04):
It's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's so crazy because it's not even an interpretation of Burke.
It's literally the Burke that we created for How to
Train Your Dragon two.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, so like our production designer Pierre Olivier vang Song
those are his designs, Oh my god, and all that
concept are like they obviously purposed it for a theme park,
but as you walk around, it's so faithful to the
animated movie.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It feels that way, right, Like as someone who's like
a massive fan of watching all the movies multiple times,
walking in like and no exaggeration, my jaw dropped because
you just feel like you're walking right into that world.
And especially like you know, I visit you at the
in the set all the way out in the Belfast
and saw like you guys recreating that and live action.
So I was kind of like, yeah, it feels like
(01:47):
home in a sense, right, Like it's really cool to
like live in it again. Yeah, And I saw you
there yesterday and I just got to ask you, like,
how is it now fifteen years past like the original
animated film and now you have the live action film
coming out and now you have this actual park that
people can go to and experience. Is it? How surreal
is it seeing something that you worked so hard on?
(02:09):
Probably wondering I hope people like this to now seeing Oh,
here's your definite answer. People are enjoying it right in
front of your eyes. How is that experience?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It messes with your head a little bit, right, because
so much of I always subscribe to the philosophy that
you should if you're writing stories and making movies, make
the movie you want to see. Don't try to second
guess your audience, like because there are so many questions
about who's this for, what's your demographic? You know, I
just say I want to I'm going to work on
(02:39):
a movie I want to see, and hopefully the people
that I'm working with agree. You know, we're all making
the same movie, and you don't know if it's going
to be embraced, and you don't know to what extent
it will be. So in this case, like this Quirky
Little Story, which is an interpretation of Crescova Howell's books,
not literally that story, but our own version. It had
(03:01):
kind of a bumpy start as it went out into
the world for that first movie, but really even within
its theatrical run, it came back to number one.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And stayed there for four weeks.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And so I think it's a word of mouth thing,
and people do see wonder in it, and they see
wish fulfillment, and it's been embraced and held close to
people's hearts for you know, for all of these years.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Now we're talking about fifteen years later.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You know, to speak to that again, massive fan of
the franchise, you're a massive fan of you, like you
guys can hear on the podcast right now. My voice
is gone. It's over. And a lot of that had
to do with screaming on hiccups like lighter Ride, screaming
at the I can't stop saying epic, guys. I'm sorry,
but it was epic. The fireworks spectacular that was happening
(03:48):
last night, and the whole time I was waiting play
that John pal Scort, play that test Stride, play it,
play it, play it, And you guys did the right thing. Universal,
Thank you so much. Yeah, they played it at the
end is one of the big finales, and my voice
was out the door. I said, yes, screaming, and I said, dang,
I got to talk to Dean tomorrow about this. So
I'm gonna blame you for this right now.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
I'll take it. I'll take it.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I thought it was amazing that John Powell was here.
He was here, Yeah, he's John pell is here. I
think he's still here today. So we have Cress and
A Cowell, author of the books This Is Her World,
brought to life John Powell, who wrote one of the
most amazing scores of all time, walking around in the park,
you know, hearing his music being played for.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
The Yeah, I told you, I didn't bring my glasses
and I couldn't see anybody. Now, I wish I would
have brought it because maybe who knows how many times
I walk by John. I'm sorry, I'm having a minute, Trevor,
I'm blaming you as well. Is Jerry in here. I'm
blaming Jerry too. Maybe if he's still here, I'm just
gonna run around and look for him.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
He's not the easiest guy to identify. Yeah, because Danny
Elfman's here too, It's easy to spot.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
A friend of mine said she saw him because you know,
he did the music for a Dark Universe as well,
And she was like, she saw him, and I got
instantly jealous and I'm like, yours is Danny Elfman. Mine
was John Powell. I wish I could have had the
John power. And who knows, maybe today I might make
that chance. I think maybe I'll open the door and
he's like, hey, Dan, let's go have lunch. And I'm like,
my prayers have been answered. But yeah, but yeah, it's
(05:22):
gotta be surreal. Just kind of like seeing the love
for this movie like kind of take shape and form,
and you know, watching the franchise just kind of like
evolve and grow with people has kind of been really great.
And I love the coming of age element of the
habitrarian dragon story. Coming of age is one of my
favorite like genres of film ever. And I just thought
about this today and I felt dumb thinking about it.
(05:42):
I was sitting there getting ready to come see you,
and I was thinking to myself, like, huh. In that
first movie, it's literally about Hiccup learning to spread his wings, right,
and he quite literally does that with a dragon. And
I had I had this like and I wanted to
talk to you about that. Where what is that in
kind of like the pre production like writing of it all,
(06:03):
where you said, this is a coming of age story
about a kid spreading his wings. What was kind of like,
like you said, the inspiration of this is how we
want to tell this story in this way.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
M yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I mean, in the first film, we were just trying
to make a movie that worked with a very tight
deadline in animation terms, fifteen months is not very much
to go from beginning to delivery, and that's what we had.
So we were really we were trying to tell the
best sort of father son story we could tell, you know,
where the kid has to come to the realization that
(06:37):
he doesn't have to change who he is, he can
actually let the world change around him.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
And so that was mostly our goal.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
But by the time I was tasked with thinking about
a second movie, I said, let's think of three.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
We can do a three act coming of age, and
literally the.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Second movie starts with him spreading his wings, flying alongside Toothless.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, you know, I gotta say the second film in
the franchise is my favorite. I feel that the themes
are deeper, they're more mature, like obviously, and then you
almost have a passing of Baton moment right where I
think it's a very mature thing to have. Sorry, spoilers
for a movie that's what twenty fourteen, that's eleven years old.
You know, to have Hiccup like, you know, murder his
(07:22):
father and then like his father is still saying like
it's not your fault, it's not his fault. Toothless, So yeah, Toothless, Yeah, sorry,
Hiccup didn't do it. Hiccup didn't do it. Guys, it
was Toothless who did it. But yeah, to have like
Toothless like murder his father and then you know, for
his father to just kind of be like, this isn't
your fault, and then Hiccup realizing, Yo, it's not Hiccup's fault,
it's not Toothless's fault. It's not my fault. Let's move
(07:43):
on with his friendship, and then he kind of like
takes over that chief role. It was like to see
that happen in that franchise. It kind of took me
aback because I remember watching that first movie and I
remember being seventeen when it came out, and so I'm
like feeling a lot like just going like I don't
know where I'm going with my life. I don't know
what's going to make me me. I don't know what
(08:04):
that thing is. And then in the second movie, it's
like where he like realizes where he stands in the world.
And so I find the second movie to be like,
in my opinion, like the best in that trilogy because
it's just like the perfect amalgamation of like the first one,
the third one, and then it's like everything just meets
in the middle there. I'm curious to know, like, what
was your favorite How to Train Your Dragon to work on?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I agree, I think it was the second one because
the first movie was a pretty you know, a hurried pace,
a rush to the finish.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
We're really proud of it.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
But the second movie I had time to kind of
really think about it. And when you're starting from a
place of a character who has achieved everything they wanted, right, I, oh, yeah,
has his father's love, he as, the acceptance of the community,
the girlfriend, the super cool dragon like kick ups, a
character without a problem at the end of the first movie.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
So the idea of advancing the clock and going to
the next right of passage, yes, you.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Know that we can all relate to, which is like
stepping out of childhood and stepping into adulthood. Yes, leaving
behind the you know that kind of youthful abandoned and
freedom of youth and taking on the consequence and the
pressure of adulthood. That that felt like a universal crossroads
to play with, and it meant a lot to me
(09:19):
personally as well, because I lost my dad when when
I was nineteen, So it's like that that idea of
carrying the mantle forward of those parental figures, you know,
in your youthful like newbie, rookie adult stage right right.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I think like the first indicator of that was that
I still this stays my mind ever since I saw it,
that first teaser for How to Tener Your Dragon two
where it's the flying side by side with two flissane
and the entire time Hicco's face is covered right, and
then the very it's like you have the title, you
have the music, it swells, you think the trailer is over,
(09:54):
and then Hiccup takes off his helmet and you see
he's like older, he's like more. You could tell he
just like a man like this is like Hiccup as
like he like like the grown up Hiccup that like
he's gonna step into That's what maybe go WHOA, like
we're not kids anymore? Like this is this is it?
And then like to hear you talk about kind of
like the next phase of life, like stepping into adulthood.
(10:16):
I feel like that trailer, that teaser captured that perfectly,
and so I want to know, like was that teas
or something you had input on, because I know sometimes
marketing and you know the director can kind of like
work parallel and not like together. But was that something
that you kind of said, this is what we need
to show or was that just something.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Now I can't remember exactly, but I definitely endorse the
idea of, you know, play up the tease, like make
make the world and the movie feel cool, yeah, and
then unveil our hero and you see that he's grown,
and because that's not something that's done in an animation
very often where you see characters age.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
So that would I definitely endorse that direction.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I did not endorse they reveal of the mother and
trailer too, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Like come on, obviously, Like I was watching that and
like I was just kind of like, this would have
been so much better because like I could tell directing
the film that that was supposed to be a moment
that was like gonna like make every one in the
audience call what like almost like a Darth Vader moment, right,
like that I'm your father movement, but like in a
loving way because I just remember Gober's like expression of
(11:18):
him walking out and saying, yeah, you might want to
take that one, buddy, Like I was like, no, having
the knowledge of going, I know who he's referring to. Yeah,
it does. It does kind of like take that away.
But still watching that film, seeing the relationship between her
and Stoic and then them losing Stoic and then her
and Hiccup, and how they're very similar in that making sense,
(11:40):
it was still so well done that even though like
we knew the reveal, we still have much more of
a meal to like eaven with that. So even though
like we both agree on that, I was like, it's
still a great kind of like you know, execution of
that idea. I really want to talk about, like you know,
you being very adamant that it was you that was
(12:00):
the Hilm this live action remake, right because you know,
we've gotten so many live action remake from so many
different studios of their animated works and you know, met
with like varying degrees of like reception right. Some people go, yeah,
my childhood is coming back, and some people are saying,
don't mess with such a good thing. But I find
you're the first one amongst all of this who did
(12:22):
the animated version and they did the live action version.
So talk to me about kind of like making that
decision and saying like, hey, this is my thing. I
want to be the one to helm miss.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Well, it comes on the heels of me rather publicly
saying I don't like this trend. I don't like animated
movies being remade into live action films in general, because
sometimes they feel a little soulless and they feel like
replacements of the animated movie and being you know, coming
from an animation background, right, take offense to that a
little bit. It's like you're undermining our art form. But
(12:55):
when it's well done, then I think there could be
merit to it. And when I you know, when Universal
was talking about kicking the tires on a live action
reimagining of How to Train Your Dragon, my first response was,
I don't want to see someone else's version of it,
Like I know these characters, I know where the heart is,
and I know this world like out of a protective instinct.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Be like I wanted to throw my hat in the
ring and say, if you're going to do it, then
let me do it, because I know where we could
go further, and I know what we could embellish, and
where we could deepen the mythology and give richness to
some of the characters that we were you know, that
we hadn't served quite as strongly in the animated version,
and and just find moments to get even more immersive
(13:42):
with the cinematography and the action and the flying. I
could see things that would be additive because we talked
about them when we were making the animated movie, and
like if we had more time and we had more
money and we had more Roger Deakins, like we could
really lean into this this idea of like making you
feel like you're in the saddle with him cup, you know.
And but there there were you know, there were characters
(14:03):
that were underserved.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
There was like it was out of necessity.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
We were making a trim tight movie with the money,
the resources that were left, in the time that was left.
And in this case we could indulge some of those
things and expand on them and explain why these warriors
are there in the first place, you know, explain a
little bit of asterids acrimonious relationship with Pickup, where she
comes from and what she's been fighting for, and that
really like kind of deepen the relationship with the father
(14:27):
and the son, and like there's a love there. There's
a but it's a push and pull of expectation, and
I think there were it's a myriad of subtle ways,
but I could see additive elements that wouldn't just be
adding fat back on to what had become a lean structure.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, and see that just answered my next question of
like what do you think makes a good or the
right way to do a live action remake of an
animated film, because I find, like you know, animated films
they accomplish things that you can't do a live action right,
Like it it allows your imagination to kind of like
run wild, and you can do these things that are
just almost impossible to do. So then when you take
something that's done that and then you put it in live action,
(15:06):
like you know, someone can argue like, oh, you're kind
of stripping away like you said, like the magic of
the animation and the heart and everything like that. But
you know, there are like those few exceptions that do
kind of recapture and add and kind of give you
another look. And I do feel like this How to
Train Your Dragon, having seen it twice in a live action,
all those things that you mentioned at it being additive.
I love Hiccup in Stoic's relationship arguably better in this film,
(15:31):
because I don't know if it's seeing Gerard Butler's like
face and seeing like the desperation for wanting his son
to be the best that he can be, or like
seeing Hiccup just being like I don't know if I
could do like it's it was just something that felt
that hit me a little harder as someone who didn't
grow up without his dad as well, Right, And so
I really like that element. Love what was happening with
(15:53):
Asterid and kind of like expanding on how Burke came
to be, like how their amalgamation of a bunch of
different vikings without spoiling much. I was like, these are
things that obviously you couldn't get to an animation, or
I could tell you wished that you could, yeah, and
to like kind of like explain that in such an
organic and natural way, like I felt the additives in
that I did, and I'm just like, as someone who
(16:15):
saw twice, I was like I got it, Like I
get this a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And the hope is that, like if you watch it
and you think, nah, I like the animation better, great, right,
Like I'm super I'm super proud of those movies. So
if that's it's sort of levels of wonder, Like I
think this is a.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Bit more ground I like the way you said that. Yeah,
but it's more photo real, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
So if you if you want a little bit of
that wish fulfillment of like what would it be to
actually interact with these dragons, right and and and get
on the back and fly one, I think we were
delivering a little more of that in a live action.
If you love the wonder of the world and the
whimsy and kind of the larger than life presentation of
a world with this with this little hiccup character trying
(16:54):
to navigate it, that's what's reflected in the theme park,
and that's definitely what's reflected in the movies, right, animated movies,
And so hopefully there's something to love about all of them,
but it's it's definitely not meant to be a replacement
of the animal.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Of course, And I feel like a lot of fans,
you know, at least the more hardcore ones on that spectrum,
just can't like really see that, Like they just see, oh,
this is replacing, like the one that I've loved my
entire life is now ruined. But it's like it's not,
it's it's there. You can go ahead and check it out,
and like now you just have like two options. And
a lot of times, like you know, I've seen live
(17:28):
action remakes that I didn't necessarily care for. I would
just say, Okay, I'll watch an animated version, but my
daughter loves the live action remakes, right, And so it's
like that's who it's for.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It's the level of wonder as you were saying, yeah,
it is.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
It is very subjective, and I think that that's film though, right.
But sometimes you sense the lack of love in some
of the remakes almost you can sense the cynicism and
the paycheck. And like I think when you watch our movie,
whether you prefer the animated one or you like this one,
or you can you can sense the love. There's like
(18:02):
it's in the craftsmanship, it's in the performances, it's like
people gave their all and and it's up to the
public to decide whether it's for them or not.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Right exactly, I really again love that you came back.
Love that Dar Butler came back, extra love that John
Powell came back. And I feel like it's it's you
guys coming back to do something that was amazing when
we first saw it, and you know, in my opinion,
it's amazing when we see it again. Like what was
(18:32):
that phone call, like when you recast Draw Butler? Was
that a no brainer? Did he do the same thing
you said did and said there's nobody else that could
play this character, please let me do it. Like, how
did those conversations work out bringing everyone back?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well, that one's a bit of an interesting story because
obviously he was He would be the perfect age, perfect character,
perfect casting for the character. And from the start, I thought, well,
of course you're room back Gerard Butler. He's the one
who hasn't aged out of his role. He's the co
creator of the role. You know, he brought so much
to it in the animated movie. And the response I
(19:06):
got back from the casting director was sorry, he's just
like he's booked with three to three, three, back to
back movies.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
You're not going to get them, like, he has no
window of opportunity. I'm like, what, Like, well, then we
have to delay the movie. We can't make it with
that Gerard.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Then, but it became this reality of like, okay, you
can't have Gerards, So who do you want? And we
went through this for a while, you know, and it's
a very short list when you think about it. Who
could fill those boots on? I can't, I can't talk
about it, but but yeah, we went down the road
and we got really close to securing who would be
the next Stoic And the actors strike.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Happened the after Strike of twenty.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Twenty three, and everything got thrown into disarray and we
didn't know how long it was going to last, and
projects were going on hold and actors were being shuffled
onto different projects in anticipation of the strike ending. By
the time it actually ended, I asked, again, is is
Jerry Butler available? Like, no, He's going right from this
one on to the next one. And so I was
(20:08):
sitting in a in a hotel, an airport hotel.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
I'd missed a flight.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I'm just sitting on my bed thinking like, we're about
to start shooting the movie and we don't know who
Stoke is going to be. And I just sent a
text to Gerard and I said, hey, I really tried,
but you know, you're just not available and feel so
weird that we're gonna have to go down the road
with someone else.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
But just know that I tried my best. And he
texted back right away and he said, what are you
talking about?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
He's like, my, we're doing scriptwork on this next movie.
It's being pushed for a month or two. When are
you shooting? Like I could be thereund in face with
a couple of texts we had Gerard Butler back on
the movie.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
That's that's that's crazy to know that he wasn't even
aware that he is up for this. He's probably thinking like, oh,
they're doing another how To Dream Dragon.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
He didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Oh didn't know there was another one.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
No, he didn't know that we were making our live accent.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
That's actually pretty hilarious. Of course I'll do it. Let's okay,
that is so funny. What about John? Like? Was that
Like I feel like that was a no brainer right, Like,
as soon as I found out there was a live
actually happening. Yeah, I said, just give me John, give
me Dean. I'm cool like Youah.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Yeah, the Universal called me. They called Chris Sanders as well.
Chris was pretty deep into the wild robot right, so
that timing wise wasn't going to work out for us
to work together on it. But as soon as as
soon as I said, I want to throw my hat
in the ring, and they said, okay, cool. First call
with John John Powell, I said, talk me out of
this if you think it's a bad idea, Like, I
don't want to desecrate the thing that we've made together.
(21:36):
But he said he came at it from the same perspective.
He said, if you do it right, you're going to
speak to the nostalgia of your current fans, and you're
going to open it up for a whole new batch
of fans. You know, maybe kids that are coming like
your fans have grown up, they might have families of
their own. There are a bunch of people who might
not have seen the animated movie.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I haven't set my old daughter now since that first
one came out.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, he said, so, so I think it casts a
wider net. And if you're in I'm in So that
gave me great confidence to know that John was keen
to do it and recognizing the risks as well.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You know, yeah, yeah, did Jay Brows show give you
a call and say, hey, you know I got to
come back and do it too.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
It's funny, j Jay's the opposite. JJ's like happy to
be left alone. But you know, I did cut a
knock on his door at one point and I just said,
what do you think of the casting of these of
these candidates. I did the same with America. I said,
here are our favorite asterids. Do you have an opinion?
You know, And it's funny she wienth in on. She
actually came back and said, all of your astids are great,
(22:35):
but you got to go with Mason Thames.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Oh yeah, let's let's table this one. That guy.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
That guy said, for what it's worth, he's he's the
most hiccupy hiccup you've got.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Honestly, yes, honestly, yes, Like especially, you know, I have
a whole thing about Mason coming in, Like I went
to his screening in La What was that last week?
Ball was that last week? And that dude is just
a star in the making. He's so charismatic, but he's
also like you know, like very like personable in like
a kind of doorkeyway, a little bit of a dork
and so like you can believe the Hiccup coming out
(23:06):
of him.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
But one of my favorite things and qualities about Hiccup
and the story of How to Train Your Dragon is
that he has these moments of obviously he's bumbling, he
doesn't know what to do, he's kind of like clanky
and you know, clunky, but then there's moments where he
has to resolve, right, Like one of my favorite moments
and I call it and I call it Hiccup's first persuasion,
right where it's like, as a chief, you got to
(23:27):
be the one to kind of like galvanize your your
warriors and your vikings. And throughout the whole movie, like
nobody's listening to Hiccup, nobody's trying to hear what he
has to say. But then there's a moment where the
first person he has to convince is Asterisk, where she
gives him this coka, mamie, like you're gonna do all
of this to protect your pet dragon. You're gonna go
back on hundreds of years of tradition to do this,
(23:49):
and the way he says, yes, it's like his first
time actually being like I know what I want to
do in this moment, and she is so like taking
it back, she goes okay, right, And I find that
Mason has that quality of being like, I don't know
what I'm doing with what's going on, so when he
needs to like lock in, he locks in.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Talk to me about finding Mason, And what was that
quality for you that kind of made it besides America
for that made you say that's our Hiccup.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, Well, Lucy Bevan was our casting director, and she
pulled together so many great candidates for Hiccup, and a
lot of them shared the same backstory, which is they
grew up with these movies and they identified with Hiccup,
and so he was a very meaningful character to them
growing up. And I'm talking about at least ten possible hiccups.
(24:41):
Mason was one of them.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
But you can't it's not fair to that I did it.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
But I do think that Mason just naturally gravitated toward
the top because he has not only a love of
how to train your dragon and love the character dressed
up as him, for Halloween, and you know, but he
is at that he was at that perfect age, Like
he auditioned when he was fifteen, and he just was,
you know, kind of getting used to his growing body.
(25:12):
So he had a little bit of that teenage awkwardness
and vulnerability and charm and self deprecating humor, Like he
walked into the room with it. And so when we
would put him in combination with our favorite Asterid candidates,
just sparks would fly, especially with Nico, like because it
was the chemistry and the pauses between dialogue where you
really get the sense that they're listening to one one
another and kind of forming judgment and all that nervousness
(25:36):
you're talking about just came through. So yeah, we had
we had great candidates, but ultimately Mason was just he
just he didn't have to come in performing hiccup.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
He just was right right right, and you feel the
hiccup in the film, like you know, I'm so I'm
trying really hard not to talk about the test strives
scene because I like to I like to look at
little things. I like to look at little things and
performances in like you know, framings and things like that,
and one of my favorite moments in the animated one.
(26:06):
And I'm going to talk about the live action.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Can I say one thing before about Mason that was
really defining for me actually paid off on set. He
wasn't aping j Barroshell, he wasn't trying to get the
physical kind of comedy or Jay's tone into it.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
He sort of.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Brought his own specificity. And there was there was a
scene that we were shooting. It was in the training arena.
It's the day where Hiccup's supposed to go out there
and kill a monster s nightmare in front of everyone,
and Stoic's making you know, he's sort of basically doing
like a wedding speech, you know, kind of making light
back up and who would have thought?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
My son?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
And as he's poking jabs at Hiccup and he's got
the crowd laughing, we put the camera on Mason and
we just like just slightly kind of rock back and
forth and watching the wounds, you know, hit his face
and like, for me, that's the defining of a feature
of Hiccup is not he can withstand the mockery and
(27:02):
the ridicule. Yeah, and still you know, still have like
the strength of character to walk out there and stand
by his convictions, and it's the way Mason played that.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Yeah, they gave it this extra layer of depth.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Because that was the first shot in the first trailer.
I remember these things. It's like at that moment where
he's looking and it's our first kind of like introduction
to this new Hiccup and I see everything that you're
talking about right there.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, so yeah, it's it's the it's the one time
where I really act like I teared up I was
watching I was watching it. I can feel like tears
running down my face because like I was that kid.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
Yeah, I know what that's like. So I think that's.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
What resonates with outsiders, you know, anyone who's like not
a cookie cutter of what society wants you to be.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yeah, you can relate to that aspect of Hiccup.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I think it tells you that you still can grow, right,
you know. It's yeah, I feel like whenever we're teenagers,
it feels like we feel stuck and whatever is happening
in our lives. And you know, I have friends with
like teenage kids and be like they're so, oh, I
don't know where I'm going with my life, Like everything's over.
Everything's over, And I'm like, oh are you sixteen? Like
(28:08):
even like twenty five year old friends, like twenty five,
you still got twenty more to go, man, just like
just keep trucking right, But again, no, it's fine. But anyway,
I love these tangents, like like I can go off
on a million different tangents and still come back. But yeah,
I feel like a lot of people when they see
this new test drive sequence are going to like really
(28:30):
lock into this film and fall in love with his
version of pickup. Because I don't want to again try
not to spoil, but my favorite moment in the animated
one is where him and Toothless are falling and they're
about to hit the rocks and he's trying to look
at the cheek sheet and he looks at he looks there,
He looks there, he looks there, and then he says,
screw it. He tosses it. I feel like the equivalent
(28:52):
in this live action It made me tear up just
as much as it did in the animated version because
seeing like Mason's face and seeing that determination of it's
now or never right and it it gives you a
different feeling than what I saw in it, right. I
was just like, God, I want to fly Dragon now,
like like one of those moments in my life where
(29:13):
I just said screw it, threw away the safety guards.
It just went full tilt into something And honestly that's
how we ended up with this podcast. But you know
that's it's it's it's it's that relatability that like I
see in that that I take with me in like
my everyday life. Right. So I just got the ten minute.
I got two big things to ask you, Okay. One
(29:34):
you and Chris Sanders. I want to say you're best friends.
I want to like say like you.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Guys are good friends.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, right, And you know you guys have worked on
like Leland Stitch and then you worked on like you
had a train of Dragon together. You just mentioned that,
you know, there was a call to Chris to do this. Ye.
Was there a conversation that you two had recently seeing
as he just had the Wild Robot, you had this
going on, he has a live action movie coming out
to something you guys both have done and now you
have this. What was that conversation like if you've had it,
(30:02):
was it like a reflection? Was it just kind of like,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It's an interesting conversation because we, to Universal's credit, they
approached me first and they said, we're thinking about a
live action version of this.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
You know, what do you think? And Chris, what do
you think?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And it gave us the opportunity to say, if you're
going to do it, then hey over here right like.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
That.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I give Universals so much props for that, because that's
not what happened on the Disney side, you know, like
they didn't they didn't come to either of us.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
They came Chris to voice it.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, so it's.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Like, for better or worse, it might be a better
movie for it.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
I haven't seen the movie and.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I think there's there's just something about,
you know, having been part of the birth of something
that's carried forward. That's that's you know, that is part
of pop culture and it's part of people's childhoods lives,
and some people are obsessive about these properties where they're
(31:03):
stitch or how to train your Dragon, And to us,
it's still we still wanted to make a movie that
was kind of personal and quirky and with our humor
and our sense of wonder and and it's wonderful to
see it be embraced by the world, right.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Right, Okay, so I lie because we have a lot,
we have ten minutes, and that was a good answer.
But I have two things I want to ask.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
That's okay, all right, So anywhere to go?
Speaker 1 (31:24):
So I the name of that show is called get Wrecked, right,
and the reason why I call it that. So I
feel like you can learn a lot about people based
off of their favorite movies, right, And I feel like
movies make us who we are at the end of
the day. So I wanted to know, is there a
movie that you could recommend me that changed your brain
chemistry when you first saw it?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, there are two of them, but I think Harold
and Maud.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Is the most.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I love Harold and Mom. Yeah, yeah, I saw that
in the film class like a long ago.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Yeah. To me, it was like I watched that.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I watched that movie at the right point in my
life where, you know, kind of the pursuit of the
important stuff and the rejection of the of the tedious mundane.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
It's like it was such a good lesson to half.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
And the other one for me is Dead Poets Society.
It really caused me to pivot. It caused me to
like think about living a life with purpose. Yeah, you know,
and what can what can you put into the world,
Like what is your you know, what is your verse
going to be?
Speaker 4 (32:21):
In the great story? Like that? That resonated with me.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, yeah, I see. I So I've had someone similar
to Robin Williams a Dead Poet with Society at different
points in my school going career. You would say, I
had this one teacher in middle school. His name was
mister May and he he walks in and he says,
I'm gonna Dead Poet Society all of you guys, and
we were like what, Like, you know, we're just a
bunch of kids from compete. We're like, what is that?
(32:45):
And he says, oh, oh, you don't know what that is.
And so he basically said, first bit of homework, go home,
watch a Dead Poet with Society. We go home. At
least I go home and I watch it because I'm like, hey,
do we have this movie? Apparently my grandmother had it
on VHS, so pop in watch it and I'm just
kind of like, wow, this is like a film about like,
you know, a teacher and these kids and he's teaching
(33:06):
these kids to be like young men and think deeply
about the world and all these type of things. And
as a kid going to a confident where there's so
many limited options out there, that was very important for
me to see, right. And So going back to school, like,
I'm kind of jazzed up, I'm like, oh, he's a boy.
The I got this teacher who's basically my Robin Williams
in this situation. He's gonna teach me about like art
and poetry and love and life and everything's gonna go great.
(33:26):
Nobody else watched that movie coming back to school of
that day, and I think in many ways that was
like my uh introduction to the love of film, right, Like,
you know, that was a you know I say a
lot of times it's Spider Man two. You know, Spider
Man two was the first movie I saw that like
made me think more deeply about movies. The Dead Post
Society was one of the ones that made me think
(33:47):
more deeply about life after that. Yeah, So I think
it's funny that you actually said.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
That, And it's also interesting to hear it from your
perspective because I kind of understand why nobody else watched
the movie because it is like I want watched it
again on the plane, and like I became immediately aware
of how this is just a bunch of like really
privileged white folks right being you know, taught in some
expensive academy, you know, art and life and love. And
(34:14):
I'm like, they miss an opportunity to sort of have
this speak to you know, a wider breadth of humanity.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, I meant, I mean, listen, there's always remakes that
can make that happen, right, And I think that post
society is something you could definitely do in this day,
and it's just don't make it like white, savory and
type of way. But also I got to say this,
especially since like we're at Universal and like they love
Back to the Future. I love me some Back to
the Future. And uh, you know how people say, like
(34:45):
that's an untouchable like movie, like don't remake it. I've
always said that if you're going to remake Back to
the Future, do it with the black Man, like, because
I'm going back in time to that time period creates
a whole new layer of a film, And I feel
like that's the only way that you can kind of
like accomplish that, because that's a way of like being
additive and kind of like, you know, telling a whole
new story. Yeah, okay, I love those films. This is
(35:08):
the last leg of the episode. Are you ready?
Speaker 4 (35:10):
I am all right?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
So are you aware of this is gonna sound dumb,
but it's gonna rap back around. Are you aware of
Mount Rushmore?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
I'm aware of it.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yes. So since we are talking about DreamWorks and like
you know, you're a director of multiple dream Works animated films,
I need you to give me your Mount Rushmore DreamWorks
animated films right now. I'll give you mine and you
can give me yours. I don't know if you've already
had your skewed up.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
All right, So we were talking about characters.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Oh, we're talking about movies, like movies, movies all right.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Well I'd put Dragon in there, I'd put Kung Fu Panda.
Mm hmm, i put Shrek in there.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
So far we're in step and this is where it
gets tricky.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
L I really like guardians.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Give give me some, give me some thank you say.
I love Rise to the Guardians so much and to
hear you say that, like it's all people don't talk
about it enough. And I made it a point that
every time Christmas and the holidays were all around, I'm like,
throw all Rise to the Guardians. I make whole videos
I say it's Rise of the Guardians style. So dude,
thank you for that.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
You welcome.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Okay, great, So is that on your official like Mount Rushmore.
People are gonna watch this to say this guy's based
That's what the kids are saying. They're gonna I don't
know if they're still saying that, but they're gonna say
this guy's got the aura whatever whatever your kids are
gonna say. Okay, So now see this is where it's
hard for me because you just reminded me of Guardians
and I love Guardians. But here's my Mount Rushmore. How
(36:40):
to Train your Dragon is up there. Uh, you could
interchange like one or two I say, like franchise to
Be Safe, Kung Fu pandam Threk. We're right there with
each other. But like, the first thing I wrote down
was Prince of Egypt. M That was the first thing
I wrote down, because I feel like that's another one
that people have forgot about, like especially since like you know,
two D Animation is like kind of.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Movie that started DreamWorks.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
It's the movie that started DreamWorks and like what other
movie a you're gonna find where you have Whitney Houston
and Mariah Carey singing a song together. It's beautiful, right,
And as someone who grew up in a Christian household,
that was like on repeat. Yeah, and you know, as
I kind of like grew older, you know, still very
much Christian, like watching a movie without the Christian goggles
and Sunday School, it's still a great movie. Like overall, yeah,
(37:25):
but like you know, if I you know, I would
say like Prince of Egypt, Rise of the Guardians, the
Wild Robot, Like sorry, Chris, I want to put up there,
but I'm like, I don't want to give it too soon.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Oh man, Right, I forgot about the Wild Robot.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I would have I would have put it in there.
I probably would have put it in there in place
of Shrek.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
I forgot for a moment.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yeah, I will put it in there. And I know,
like people, and I'm not doing this because of anticipation
what the comments are gonna say. But I gotta be
careful of like recency bias. Right. I know it's a
great film. I know it's fantastic and I know I'm
gonna love it ten years from now, but right now,
I'm like, Okay, let me hold my ped on, my
Prince of Egypt, let me hold pedal my Rise to
the Guardians. Yeah, so, Prince of Va Rise to the Guardians.
The Wild Robot, there was one Puss and boost the
(38:04):
Last Wish.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, well, pushing boots to.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
The Last Wish also deserves to be on that spot.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
I feel like, actually they've been knocking it out of
the park recently. Oh, absolutely, Last Wish and Wild Robot.
And I heard Bad Guys Too is really good guys.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Oh my god, So oh you heard it was good
because I love bad guys again, Okay, not bias at all,
not bias at all, but I do think it's gonna
be good because I love bad guys, right, And so yeah,
it's at this point and I think we're very fortunate
enough to have an embarrassment of riches when it comes
to dream where Santi made films where back to back
to back, we've had great outings, right, and I'm glad
(38:39):
that this Mount Rushmore is Like, I'm happy that it's
easy for you, because you just said, Rise of Guardian
is so easy but for me, like I'm I'm gonna
probably stay true to Prince of Egypt right now. But
you're just reminding me of like you know, the rises,
you know, the wild robots, and it's hard, but I'm glad.
We'll see what the people say in the comments about that.
(38:59):
I can't wait see what other people's like Mount rushmorees
are But dude, that is the end of the show.
And thank you so much for talking to me about Dude,
this is a lot of fun. We gotta do it
again sometime. I know you're super busy and.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Whatnot, but no, listen, I'll always make time for you.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
You heard it, guys. You heard that, Like I don't
have to say anything else. Thank you, guys. This is
Dean Deblad, the director, writer, producer of live action and
animated How to Train Your Dragon. Thank you so much
for watching. Make sure you guys catch this episode first
on substack make sure you support us there, but then
it will be out on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, wherever you
watch or listen to your podcast at I am Straw
(39:35):
had goofy and can I be your movie guy.
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