DreamWorks is eyeing a new multimedia franchise: How to Train Your Dragon.
How to Train Your Dragon sequel release in 2013
The Glendale animation studio has plans to release a sequel in the second half of 2013 and is also planning a live arena show, a TV series and an online virtual world based on the Dragon film, reflecting the company’s plan to leverage its characters across multiple platforms.
Released on 26 March, 2010, the 3D How to Train Your Dragon had a weak opening, but the animated film has since then benefited from good reviews. It has notched up about $375 million in worldwide ticket sales to date. The box-office performance of How to Train Your Dragon heralds a strong start to 2010 for DreamWorks.
Loosely based on the 2003 book of the same name, How to Train Your Dragon is set in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named Hiccup aspires to follow his tribe’s tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. When he captures his first dragon, getting a chance to gain acceptance from his tribe, he realizes that he no longer wants to slay the dragon. The rest of the film deals with how Hiccup befriends and then trains the dragon.
Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse have dubbed for the animated film.
How to Train Your Dragon, which grossed $180 million in the United States, seems on track to equal the box-office performance of Kung Fu Panda, which made $215 million domestically. We hope the sequel matches up to and hopefully beats the original.
DreamWorks will release Shrek: Forever After, the fourth and reportedly last Shrek film, on May 21, 2010. The film brings back the voice cast of Mike Myers (Shrek), Cameron Diaz (Fiona), Eddie Murphy (Donkey) and Antonio Banderas (Puss in Boots).
Shrek: Forever After, the first in the film franchise to be released in 3D, opened the Tribeca Film Festival in New York a month ahead of its U.S. release. The first three Shrek movies raked in more than $2.2 billion at the worldwide box office.
DreamWorks also has great expectations from Megamind (starring Brad Pitt, Tina Fey and Will Ferrell) and feels the November 5, 2010, film will do for the superhero genre what Shrek did for fairy tales.