Production on How I Train Your Dragon 2 has officially commenced!
Universal Pictures has announced the start of filming on the next chapter in their live-aciton How I Train Your Dragon film series, and have shared a first look photo of director Dean DeBlois on set and ready to roll cameras.
The studio (via The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline) have also cast a number of major roles, with 2x Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett (Thor: Ragnarok; Blue Jasmine), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Severance; Your Friends & Neighbors), and Primetime Emmy-nominee Phil Dunster (Ted Lasso; The Devil's Hour) confirmed to be heading to Berk next Summer.
Blanchett will reprise her role as Hiccup's long-lost mother Valka. She voiced the role in the blockbuster animated trilogy and is now the second actor, after Gerard Butler, to jump from the animated movies to live-action. Spoilers aside, we'd presume she'll also return for the inevitable third installment.
Meanwhile, Ólafsson will play the film's villain Drago Bludvist, a ruthless warlord and dragon hunter who seeks to take over the world with a dragon army, and Dunster will play Eret, son of Eret, a dragon trapper who sells captured dragons to Drago. In the animated films, Drago was voiced by Djimon Hounsou and Eret was voiced by Kit Harington.
The trio will join an ensemble cast that returns Mason Thames ("Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III"), Nico Parker ("Astrid Hofferson"), Gerard Butler ("Stoick the Vast"), Julian Dennison ("Fishlegs Ingerman"), Gabriel Howell ("Snotlout Jorgenson"), Bronwyn James ("Ruffnut Thorston"), and Harry Trevaldwyn ("Tuffnut Thorston").
While we don't have an official synopsis just yet, the original second film's plot synopsis reads, "Five years have passed since Hiccup and Toothless united the dragons and Vikings of Berk. Now, they spend their time charting the island's unmapped territories. During one of their adventures, the pair discover a secret cave that houses hundreds of wild dragons -- and a mysterious dragon rider who turns out to be Hiccup's long-lost mother, Valka. Hiccup and Toothless then find themselves at the center of a battle to protect Berk from a power-hungry warrior named Drago."
Dean DeBlois returns to write and direct the sequel, with Marc Platt and Adam Siegel attached as producers.
The 2025 live-action How To Train Your Dragon was one of the year's biggest hits, grossing over $636.4 million on an estimated $150 million production budget, which made greenlighting a sequel an easy decision.
How To Train Your Dragon 2 hits theaters on June 11, 2027!