The success of 2025’s How to Train Your Dragon may mark the end of a major part of the franchise. How to Train Your Dragon was only the first of what is now likely a host of DreamWorks live-action remakes. The film became immediately successful, as proven by How to Train Your Dragon‘s positive reviews and its box office haul.

While it may not be the best How to Train Your Dragon movie, the 2025 remake did what most should by remaining very faithful to the original story. The success of the film has led to the confirmation of How to Train Your Dragon 2 already, with the sequel scheduled for release in 2027.

This, as well as many other aspects of the remake, proves that a major part of the How to Train Your Dragon franchise may be over.

How To Train Your Dragon’s Live-Action Success Likely Means No More Animated HTTYD Movies

With 2025’s How to Train Your Dragon being so successful in so many ways, it is unlikely there will ever be more animated movies in the franchise. The first animated movie was released in 2010, with two sequels being released in 2014 and 2019, respectively.

Since then, the animated section of the franchise has been focused on spin-off TV shows set in the How to Train Your Dragon universe. With the announcement of the live-action remake in 2023, focus switched to that, with DreamWorks Animation partnering with Universal to produce it. As already alluded to, 2025’s How to Train Your Dragon was a success.

The film has currently earned a worldwide box office total of $626 million, rendering it the highest-grossing installment in the entire franchise, beating out 2014’s How to Train Your Dragon 2. This success proves that the creatives at DreamWorks will want to put all of their time into developing the live-action branch of the franchise.

The early announcement of How to Train Your Dragon 2 in live-action further reinforced this, meaning we are almost guaranteed to see a live-action How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World by 2030. This will keep the franchise’s only director, Dean DeBlois, busy, meaning he cannot develop any more animated movies in the series.

How to Train Your Dragon 4 has never been officially confirmed, but there have long been rumors of the franchise continuing. Now, it seems as though these rumors will remain exactly that.

Evidently, DeBlois and the franchise’s higher-ups are focusing on the live-action remakes of How to Train Your Dragon‘s two sequels. It is unlikely that more animated movies will be developed simultaneously with the remake’s sequels, suggesting that How to Train Your Dragon‘s success in 2025 has killed the animated side of the franchise.