DreamWorks has joined the live-action remake battle in Hollywood with How To Train Your Dragon, and it’s already started beating the majority of Disney’s remakes. Universal and DreamWorks have moved rather quickly to bring How To Train Your Dragon to live-action after watching Disney make a fortune off bringing beloved animated classics into live-action. Through 24 remakes, Disney has made over $11 billion at the box office. DreamWorks won’t catch that with How To Train Your Dragon alone, but it is beating Disney in another way.

Reviews are in for How To Train Your Dragon, and the response has been quite positive for DreamWorks’ first foray into this type of production. As of this writing, the movie is sitting at an 80% score with critics based on 74 reviews. While the final rating could still shift up or down slightly, How To Train Your Dragon‘s Rotten Tomatoes score should stay in this range. While that is much lower than the animated movies that came before it, it’s already one of the best live-action remakes ever put to screen, topping many of Disney’s offerings.

How To Train Your Dragon’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Better Than Almost Every Disney Live-Action Remake

DreamWorks Has Beaten Disney At Its Own Game

The 80% score for How To Train Your Dragon on Rotten Tomatoes is already better than the majority of Disney’s live-action remakes. It’s currently tied with Disney’s first ever remake, 1994’s The Jungle Book, but its score could return to a slightly higher figure, which the film had before. The only live-action remakes from Disney that are undoubtedly ahead of How To Train Your Dragon are Cinderella (84%) and 2016’s The Jungle Book (94%).

Overall, this means DreamWorks’ first live-action remake is better than 21 of Disney’s. It actually gets worse for Disney, and better for DreamWorks, the further we dig into it too. How To Train Your Dragon‘s Rotten Tomatoes score is higher than Disney’s last 16 live-action remakes. That includes their adaptations of adored animated movies like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Lilo & Sтιтch.

Disney’s most critically praised live-action remakes since The Jungle Book have been Cruella (75%) and Christopher Robin (73%), which were both closer to original movies utilizing known animated characters than true remakes. Mulan and Beauty and the Beast both scored 71% scores from critics, although they took wildly different approaches to adapting the animated films; the first removed several key animated elements to be more realistic and authentic, while the other was very accurate to the animated version.

Why How To Train Your Dragon’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Is So Good

A SH๏τ-For-SH๏τ Remake Done Right

The reviews for How To Train Your Dragon have been mostly positive for lots of different reasons. Several note the strong performances of its cast, whether it’s Mason Thames’ take on Hiccup, Gerard Butler bringing Stoick to live-action, or Nico Parker’s expanded portrayal of Astrid. The bond between Hiccup and Toothless still works for lots of critics, while John Powell’s score, Dean DeBlois’ direction, and strong visuals help the film out too.

Surprisingly, the film’s decision to practically be a sH๏τ-for-sH๏τ remake of the animated movie has not deterred too much enthusiasm for the film. That is an aspect that the negative reviews are primarily pointing out, stating that the film doesn’t offer too much newness, even if it expands certain areas of the story and characters. One of the reasons why the sH๏τ-for-sH๏τ remake concern hasn’t hindered the film too much is the visuals. The live-action setting and CGI on the dragons are a stark improvement on the original animated film’s somewhat dated animation.

Sarah Moran’s How To Train Your Dragon review for ScreenRant specifically highlighted DeBlois as a key figure for making the movie work so well:

DeBlois’ has crafted a movie that is both a loving homage to the animated original and an exciting summer blockbuster full of spectacle and heart. It delivers the same thrills that came from watching it the first time. He knows which scenes should remain the same and which could use some tweaking

How To Train Your Dragon Proves Universal Learned From Disney’s Live-Action Remake Mistakes

It Pays Not Coming First This Time

Fresh ideas and ingenuity can often be key to finding success in Hollywood, as Disney found early on with its live-action remakes. But the box office success helped cloud some underlying issues with Disney’s process, and it became too late to fully correct them all by the time ticket sales started declining. Veering too far from the original movies, having bland visuals compared to the bright colors of animation, and failing to recapture the overall feeling of the previous films are all common critiques Disney has heard through many of its remakes.

Yet, DreamWorks has seemingly learned from Disney’s mistakes and applied those lessons to How To Train Your Dragon. This isn’t a case where critics are being easier on DreamWorks than Disney, nor is it an instance where an argument could be made that the film being remade isn’t of great quality; the original animated HTTYD has a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. Whereas Disney has potentially rushed along some remakes of beloved films before they were ready from a script or visual standpoint, How To Train Your Dragon has come at the right time to show how these movies can work.