One character that will benefit the most from the expanded focus of the live-action movie is Astrid, played by Nico Parker in the upcoming film. DeBlois has his “own list of regrets” when it comes to things he wishes he could have explored more in the first movie, and Astrid is one of them.

“It felt like she was pretty thin, but she potentially had more [depth],” he says, “This was a chance to just get in there [and] to better understand why she’s got such an acrimonious relationship with Hiccup in the beginning. She’s worked really hard for the attention that she gets.”

This will also allow the film to shine a light on the dynamics between Stoick, Hiccup, and Astrid. “She’s the kid [Stoick] would have loved to have had,” he says. “Hiccup is never focused on this destiny. His mind goes elsewhere. He has the benefit of privilege. He’s the son of the chief, and so he coasts by.”

Astrid “can really call him out on that,” though, and her desire to be chief one day is something that the new How to Train Your Dragon movie highlights. It’s a different kind of fight from the one Hiccup will go through, but it’s just as important in the tough Viking world the film takes place in.

The sacrifice Astrid makes when she teams up with Hiccup puts all of this into focus: “She has to give up a lot to fall from grace with Hiccup,” DeBlois says, speaking of the excitement about seeing Astrid in this light. “It’s a better character to watch.”

Backlash against Parker’s casting as Astrid is something DeBlois acknowledges, though he doesn’t put much stock in it. He’s confident in Parker as an actor and says that audiences will just have to see her performance to really get it:

Then we found Nico Parker, who could actually play all of that with confidence. People who are online who are complaining she’s not blonde enough or not white enough, just wait till they see the performance. The performance tells me [everything I need to know]. It’s also an expanded mythology, so not everyone needs to be white in this community. They are a gathering of warriors from all of these different places, under the same Viking banner.

It sort of broadens the world, and it gives them a real purpose for why they’re on this island in the first place. They’re now generations in, they’ve been mixing it all in. All that sort of nonsense [surrounding the diverse casting], I just discount it. They don’t know what they don’t know. Once you see the movie, the things answer themselves.

Bringing The Vikings Back To The Big Screen

“It Ratcheted Up The Tension”

That’s a very interesting aspect of this world, because it is very true to the adventurous spirit of the viking as a concept.

The truth is, the Vikings did travel far and wide. They were on the Silk Road. They’re in the Far East. They’re in North Africa. They even had a name for North Africa, which is called Bláland. They interacted with all of these cultures and traded with all of these cultures. So it makes sense.

[In this world], there are dragons. It’s the truth. Dragons are a part of so many cultures that, in my mind, if they were a menace to all these cultures, that could be sort of the basis of them coming together for the purpose of wiping the dragons out.

Then it gives a sense of urgency and purpose to the start of the story in Berk. In generations, they haven’t even found the nest, never mind actually killing off all the dragons. They’re being beaten at their own game. It puts Stoick under a lot of pressure, and it makes Hiccup’s screw-ups more consequential. It ratcheted up the tension.

Recreating The Iconic Elements Of How To Train Your Dragon

“We Deliberately Were Very Close…In Other Places, We Expanded”