You are listening to The Next Best Picture podcast, and these are Daniel Howitt's interviews with the director and writer for How to Train Your Dragon, Dean de Blah, and the film's composer, John Powell.

We're all descendants of the finest dragon fighters from everywhere the Vikings ever traveled.

These beasts are a threat to all of our lands.

It's time, eckop.

I'll have to kill you.

I'm going because I'm a Viking.

You're that? I'm a Viking!

It's okay. I won't hurt you.

Well, Dean, this is Daniel Howitt from Next Best Picture.

I have been so excited to speak with you.

I'm such a fan of the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy.

And so when they announced that you would be directing the live-action remake, I was very curious and excited.

So I'm excited to learn more.

So I think there's no better place to start them

with the very obvious question, you know,

of after creating this animated franchise,

why take on the remake yourself?

Because Universal approached me about doing a live-action reimagining, and I thought if they're

going to do it, I wanted to volunteer to kind of keep, basically just to keep the wonder and

the emotion intact. And being somebody who's not a fan of this remake trend, I thought,

if it's going to be done,

I at least feel like I could carry over the integrity of what fans like about the animated movies.

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