18 facts you might not know about 'How to Train Your Dragon'

In 2003, British author Cressida Cowell published the children’s book How to Train Your Dragon. The first book shares a title with the first film, but Cowell has kept going strong. There are now 12 books in the How to Train Your Dragon series. The last, How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury, came out in 2015.

Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois worked as writers for Disney animation before they were given a chance to direct a film that Disney thought would be a cheap secondary release. That film turned out to be Lilo & Stitch, which became a big hit for Disney. Then, they didn’t direct another Disney movie. After that 2002 film, Sanders and DeBlois didn’t write or direct again until How to Train Your Dragon, a DreamWorks film.

Another writer who gets credit for How to Train Your Dragon: a British screenwriter named Will Davies. When they came on, according to DeBlois, the film was “heavily loyal to the book.” Sanders and DeBlois weren’t interested in that, feeling it was too geared toward young children. One of the big changes they made was turning Toothless, the dragon protagonist, into a Night Fury dragon, the rarest dragon from the world of the book, as opposed to being a Garden dragon.

Sure, How to Train Your Dragon is animated, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t use a good eye on the film. Sanders and DeBlois brought Roger Deakins on as a visual consultant. If you are a movie buff, the cinematographer needs no introduction. Just in case, though, Deakins has been nominated for 15 Oscars, winning twice for Best Cinematography.

The animators wanted a distinct look for their dragons — inspired by panthers, in particular. Additionally, they did a ton of research on flight and fire to try and do as good a job as possible conveying those. As a 3D release, the production team felt flight would be the film's big selling point.

The filmmakers had to flesh out the world of Cowell’s books for the movie. Specifically, key characters were added to the mix. In the first book in the series, the one that inspired this film, Hiccup doesn’t have a love interest. The character of Astrid was added to the movie.

The movie is brimming with comic relief characters and has an impressive cast. The directors wanted to make the most of these comedic minds. Kristen Wiig, T.J. Miller, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Jonah Hill were brought together to record in person so they could riff off each other and improvise.

Tennant voices the character of Spitelout, though he was not credited at the time. He’s had a bigger impact in the world of How to Train Your Dragon. He lent his voice to the audiobooks for Cowell’s book series, and he also provided some narration for the movie’s website.

Unplanned things end up in live-action films from time to time, but in animation? Hey, mistakes can bear fruit there as well. During the “touch” scene, Toothless is hesitant for a moment. This was actually an animation error. The animators thought it worked perfectly for the scene and left it in.

A dog inspired the sound the Terrible Terrors make. Like, literally, a specific dog. A sound designer saw a video of a Chihuahua named Paco on YouTube and thought Paco’s vocalizations were the perfect inspiration for the Terrible Terrors. Don’t worry. Paco was reportedly paid $100 for his voiceover work.

In our world, left-handers are in the clear minority. Lefties abound in How to Train Your Dragon. Hiccup is a lefty. In the scene where the Vikings celebrate after all the dragons fly out of the volcano, almost all of them are holding their swords in their left hands.

When Toothless is carrying Hiccup and Astrid to Dragon Island, they are surrounded by other dragons. One of them is carrying a hippo that may look familiar. That hippo is Gloria from the movie Madagascar.

Spielberg was one of the heads of DreamWorks when it was its own studio, and, hey, if Spielberg wants to provide some insight on your film, you’re probably going to take it, right? The legendary director thought the bond between Hiccup and Toothless was losing steam as the film continued, comparing their dynamic to a cowboy and their horse in a Western. As such, they added Toothless to the scene where Hiccup is dealing with losing part of his leg after the battle with the Red Death Dragon so they could have an emotional moment.

Hiccup is a teenager, the first teenage protagonist for a DreamWorks Animation movie. However, we are never told how old Hiccup is. In the second film in the series, we find out he’s 20. That film takes place five years after the first one, so if you do the math, you know Hiccup is 15 in How to Train Your Dragon.

Critics really dug How to Train Your Dragon. It has a 99 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Moviegoers enjoyed it as well. The movie made $217.6 million domestically and $277.3 million internationally. Its total of $494.9 million made it the 10th-highest-grossing movie of 2010 and the highest-grossing DreamWorks Animation film not involving Shrek.

The Academy bestowed two nominations on this film. Unsurprisingly, one was for Best Animated Feature, with the other for Best Original Score. However, it did not win either of those.

Many awards shows nominated How to Train Your Dragon, but it wasn’t necessarily winning a ton. That wasn’t the case at the Annie Awards, which are dedicated to animation. The movie was nominated for a whopping 14 Annies, winning 10 of them. That includes Best Animated Feature.

How to Train Your Dragon has been followed by two sequels, both of which have been successful and nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. Additionally, there have been three different TV shows. It’s a billion-dollar franchise, and we likely haven’t seen the last of it.