PRINTED WORLDS COME TO LIFE ON THE BIG SCREEN
Deblois loved comic books, but animated features upped the ante for creativity
for the third and final film — such movies as “E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial” and “Born Free,” in which a human who has bonded with a creature of some kind must eventually let it go.
“Because it’s such a long-term commitment, I think a big part of the job directing animation is to guard against the outside forces so the thing itself can be nurtured and worked on and strengthened as best you can,” says Deblois. “All along, my greatest fear was that they were going to say, ‘Abandon this idea of a trilogy.’”
Luckily, when he met with Langley, she lit up at the mention of “Born Free,” he says. “She grew up with that story, which she loved, so it felt like I had her support from the start.”
And so Deblois was allowed to complete the “Dragon” saga as he envisioned, bringing closure to the story, which releases Feb. 21 in the U.S. “I’m not delusional,” says Deblois, who has given a decade to the franchise. “I know it’s been a money-making franchise for them, so they may want to go back into it in the future.”
Indeed, the third installment is already racking up big numbers overseas.
After all, “Star Wars” may have originated as one trilogy, but it has since spawned additional prequels and sequels, as well as countless spinoffs in television, video games and other media.
“What I tried to do was complete the story of Hiccup and Toothless and their era of dragons, but also leave alive the idea that dragons could be under our feet to this day,” Deblois explains. “There could be another timeline, another set of characters, and a purpose for bringing them back out into the upper world.”
“How to Train Your Dragon” director Dean Deblois grew up wanting to be a comic-book artist. After meandering his way through fine-arts classes at Sheridan College for a year, however, he managed to get into the school’s summer animation program, where he found his calling.
“Animation had everything I love about comic books — you design your world and your characters, tell your story — but it was brought to life and could reach a worldwide audience in a way that I didn’t think comic books could,” Deblois says.
As that first summer came to a close, he submitted his portfolio to Hinton Animation Studios, where he started out as an “inbetweener” on the hand-drawn TV series “Raccoons,” later transitioning into the layout department for Hinton’s first feature, “The Nutcracker Prince.”
“It was terrible, but it allowed me to work nine months of the year, pay off my tuition, and go back to school the following summer,” says Deblois, who applied for and was accepted to go work for former Disney legend Don Bluth in Ireland after his third summer at Sheridan.
“He was this incredible draftsman, where he could sit down at a fresh sheet of paper and without searching for the drawing, draw exactly what his mind was projecting onto the page,” Deblois recalls. “His weakness was story.”
After four years in Ireland, Deblois was hired by Disney to work as a layout artist on “Mulan.” Through a lucky break, he was offered a chance to join the story team, where he met future collaborator Chris Sanders. When “Mulan” wrapped, Sanders’ contract gave him a period to develop a project to direct, during which he focused on an idea about a misfit creature stranded in a forest, enlisting Deblois to help flesh out what ultimately became “Lilo & Stitch.”
Since Sanders and Deblois were seen as artists, not writers, Disney planned to hire professionals to pen the script. “By the time they really started paying attention to us, we were so far down the road with this kind of quirky and singular voice, bringing someone else in would upset the tone that they’d come to like about it,” Deblois says.
According to Sanders, “Dean has a very original and strong voice,” and their time together on “Mulan” had shown that their sense of tone wand sensibility overlapped in complementary ways.
“Dean is great at dialogue, but senses when to have the characters stay silent and let music and acting take the spotlight,” he says.
Following “Lilo & Stitch,” DeBlois turned his attention to live-action filmmaking, landing a two-picture deal at Disney. A project called “The Banshee and Finn Mcgee” had been assigned a start date and budget when a change of presidency at the studio killed it. Nearly the same thing happened with a script called “Sightings” at Universal, which got held up in an executive shuffle when Sanders — who was now at Dreamworks Animation — asked him to help rescue “How to Train Your Dragon.”
“There was a lot to be done in a short time, and I could instantly see that this project could use his structural eye,” Sanders says. “There were also multiple young adult characters to develop, and I knew Dean had been writing some stories with just those sorts of characters. And, of course, I love his drawings. His boards can sell a moment brilliantly, and I knew that there was a lot of drawing to be done.”
Looking forward, Deblois says, “I do still have a strong desire to try something in live action.”
With a billion-dollar franchise under his belt, maybe now’s the time.
Animation had everything I love about comic books ... but it was brought to life.” Dean Deblois