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How to Train Your Dragon director Dean DeBlois came back to direct the live-action adaptation because he "didn't want to see somebody else's version of it"
Dean DeBlois, who directed both the original How to Train Your Dragon and Lilo and Stitch, was protective of the story he brought to the screen
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We're at an odd point in cinema history right now in 2025, with two live-action films out in theaters right now called How To Train Your Dragon and Lilo and Stitch - both of which are remakes of animated movies beloved by audiences for years. The two movies have one significant difference, however: only one live-action adaptation was directed by the original animated film's director, and that's How To Train Your Dragon and director Dean DeBlois... who was also the co-director of the original animated Lilo and Stitch.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, DeBlois dished on the weirdness he felt towards being "a complete stranger" to the Lilo and Stitch live-action adaptation even as he was welcomed by Universal Pictures for How To Train Your Dragon's adaptation. “Even now I can’t quite get my head around it, especially being that I’m intimately involved in one and a complete stranger to the other," DeBlois began. “The big difference is that Universal approached me as the original filmmaker, which is something that I don’t think any of the Disney remakes have done. So that was flattering and an honor. And to be frank, I selfishly didn’t want to see somebody else’s version of [How to Train Your Dragon].”
The live-action adaptation of How To Train Your Dragon is essentially a shot-by-shot remake of the animated film, albeit with an extra 27 minutes of new footage expanding the story, so it's interesting to see DeBlois acknowledge that he didn't want to see "somebody else's version" of it when I would imagine that Universal wasn't envisioning an overhaul of the original story to begin with. But I wasn't there in the room when they were developing the adaptation, so who's to say what they were really thinking.
DeBlois directed all three original animated How To Train Your Dragon films, which are based off of the book series by Cressida Cowell.
How To Train Your Dragon (and Lilo and Stitch) are in theaters now.
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