There's Only One Part Of The Live-Action How To Train Your Dragon Trailer That Looks Cool

Live-action remakes of animated movies are all the rage in Hollywood at the moment. These are the streaming era's answer to the Disney vault of decades past. Now that movies are widely available on streaming, simply hiding a movie for 10 years only to do a grand re-release in theaters isn't feasible. Instead, Disney, and now DreamWorks, are all about spending hundreds of millions of dollars re-imagining beloved animated movies with live-action and/or, in certain cases, purely CGI instead.

The latest one, "How to Train Your Dragon," is a remake of an animated feature that turns 15 in 2025 and is pretty much undeniably one of the best movies DreamWorks Animation has ever made. There's reason to be excited, too, as Dean DeBlois who directed the original animated "How to Train Your Dragon" with Chris Sanders, is back to helm the live-action retelling — meaning, the guiding creative vision remains the same.

Unfortunately, the trailers for the live-action "How to Train Your Dragon" have done little to convince us this is anything but another utterly pointless remake like the many Disney has made. So far, at least, the previews have focused (not without reason) on simply showing how faithful the movie is to the animated original, as well as how life-like everyone's favorite Night Fury, aka Toothless, is. Except, the remake doesn't really look that much like the original either since it's missing a special ingredient: Roger Deakins as a visual consultant. It was the legendary cinematographer who helped make the animated "How to Train Your Dragon" trilogy one of the most visually-stunning works of the last 15 years regardless of medium. Without his input, the live-action remake looks like any other big-budget movie.

There is, however, one aspect of the remake that looks fantastic: Gerard Butler as Stoick the Vast. Butler is reprising his role from the animated trilogy, and has been vocal about his enthusiasm for this new take on "How to Train Your Dragon," going as far as to calling it jaw-dropping. If nothing else, the thought of Butler playing a giant Viking with a massive beard has me incredibly giddy to actually see this film.

Stoick the Vast is not just an incredible name, but he's also a great character and has an even better design. In the animated "How to Train Your Dragon," Stoick's role is primarily to misunderstand his son and dragons, until eventually he comes to appreciate them both. Because Butler is reprising the part, there's an added layer to the character in the actor's physical performance. His looks now match the gravitas of his powerful vocal performance, making Stoick the most commanding presence in the movie by far. Given Butler is arguably the biggest name in the cast, combined with his extensive action movie experience, it'll make it easier for the audience to initially root for and support Stoick's badass dragon-hunting before falling for the charming, adorable Toothless.

Just imagine Butler bringing the same kinetic energy he brings to "Den of Thieves 2: Pantera" into this movie, only dressed as a Viking and wielding a big axe. In addition to a cute and thrilling story about a boy and his dragon, Butler can also make this the kind of dragon-fighting action epic audiences have been waiting for since "Reign of Fire" came out in 2002. After all, that film gave us Matthew McConaughey jumping off of a tower with an axe to fight a dragon, why can't Butler do the same? That alone is reason enough for me to want to watch the same movie all over again, but with flesh-and-blood actors this time.

Butler was once skeptic about making a sequel to the original "How to Train Your Dragon," and then ended up being as enthusiastic about that movie. Perhaps the remake will surprise audiences, too. We'll find out when the live-action "How to Train Your Dragon" hits theaters on June 13, 2025.