Summary : How to Train Your Dragon is a 2010 American computer-animated action fantasy film loosely based on the 2003 book of the same name by British author Cressida Cowell, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois from a screenplay by Will Davies, Sanders, and DeBlois, and stars the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, and Kristen Wiig. The story takes place in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named Hiccup aspires to follow his tribe's tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. After finally capturing his first dragon, a Night Fury, and with his chance at last of gaining the tribe's acceptance, he finds that he no longer wants to kill the dragon and instead befriends it.
Plot: The Viking village of Berk, located on a remote island, is attacked frequently by dragons, which take livestock and damage property. Hiccup, the awkward fifteen-year-old son of the village chieftain, Stoick the Vast, is deemed too scrawny and weak to fight the dragons, so he instead creates mechanical devices under his apprenticeship with Gobber, the village blacksmith, though Hiccup's inventions often backfire. During one attack, Hiccup uses a bolas launcher to shoot down a Night Fury, a dangerous and rare dragon of which little is known, but no one believes him, so he searches for the fallen dragon on his own. He finds the dragon in the forest, tangled in his net, but cannot bring himself to kill him, and instead sets him free.
Cast: Jay Baruchel as Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the awkward son of Stoick the Vast.
America Ferrera as Astrid Hofferson, Hiccup's fellow student in dragon training and his love interest.
Gerard Butler as Stoick the Vast, the chieftain of Berk and Hiccup's father.
Craig Ferguson as Gobber the Belch, Berk's blacksmith, a close friend of Stoick's and teacher of the tribe's young dragon-training recruits.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs Ingerman, an enthusiastic youth knowledgeable in dragon lore which he often relates in role-playing game style.
Jonah Hill as Snotlout Jorgenson, one of Hiccup's dragon-training classmates. Snotlout is brash, overconfident, and fairly unintelligent, but reliable.
T.J. Miller and Kristen Wiig as Tuffnut and Ruffnut Thorston, a pair of quarrelsome twins.
David Tennant as Spitelout, Snotlout's father.
Robin Atkin Downes as Ack, a blond-bearded Viking.
Philip McGrade as Starkard.
Kieron Elliot as Hoark the Haggard, a Viking with a knotted beard.
Ashley Jensen as Phlegma the Fierce, a female Viking who works as a botanist at the School of Dragons.
Release: How to Train Your Dragon had its United States premiere on March 21, 2010 at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, and was theatrically released on March 26, 2010 in the United States. It was originally scheduled for release on November 20, 2009, but was pushed back to avoid competition with crowded family films released in November. The film was digitally re-mastered into IMAX 3D, and released to 186 North American IMAX theatres, and approximately 80 IMAX theatres outside North America.
Competition for 3D screens: A month before the release, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg protested Warner Bros.' decision to convert Clash of the Titans from 2D to 3D, then to release it one week after How to Train Your Dragon. Entertainment reporter Kim Masters described the 3D release schedule around March 2010 as a "traffic jam", and speculated that the lack of 3D screen availability could hurt Katzenberg's prospects despite his support of the 3D format.
In March 2010, theater industry executives accused Paramount Pictures (who distributed the film on behalf of DreamWorks) of using high-pressure tactics to coerce theaters to screen How to Train Your Dragon rather than competing 3D releases, Clash of the Titans and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. As theater multiplexes often had just one 3D screen, theaters were unable to accommodate more than one 3D presentation at a time.
Box office: How to Train Your Dragon topped the North American box office with $43.7 million in its first weekend of release.[15] The film grossed $217,581,231 in the United States and Canada and $277,297,528 in foreign countries with a worldwide total of $494,878,759. How to Train Your Dragon is DreamWorks Animation's highest-grossing film in the American and Canadian box office other than the Shrek films. It is the fifth-highest-grossing animated film of 2010 with $494.8 million, behind Toy Story 3 with $1,063.2 million, Shrek Forever After with $752.6 million, Tangled with $576.6 million, and Despicable Me with $543.1 million and the 10th-highest-grossing movie of 2010. As of 2019, the How to Train Your Dragon series has grossed over $1 billion worldwide.
