While the action was confined to an island in the hit movie How to Train Your Dragon, the sequel will expand to include a larger geographic area, says director and screenwriter Dean DeBlois.
DeBlois told the Hollywood Reporter that he is working on the second draft of the screenplay, with a plan to pave the way for a possible third film. The computer-animated fantasy film was based on the 2003 book by British author Cressida Crowell.
"I turned in the script before the holidays, and got some notes back and I’m working on a second draft,"said DeBlois. "It’s going to be quite epic. We are treating How To Train Your Dragon as the first act in a much larger story. As we head into this one, the world expands. Everything is much bigger with still the heartfelt qualities that made the first one resonate so much with audiences. There are no longer restrictions to this tiny island in the North Sea. They have the entire Northern hemisphere within their grasp."
"The only way of tracing the story is to draw on elements that were in the first movie and set up elements for a third movie, so it doesn’t feel like a random adventure with the same five or six characters. This truly is a second chapter in a larger story."
This time, DeBlois will be the sole director and screenwriter. His partner on the first film, Chris Sanders, will act as executive producer. DreamWorks is expected to recruit many of the actors who lent their voices to the characters in the original film, including Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill and Kristen Wiig.
The original film grossed half a billion dollars and became DreamWorks Animation’s fifth most successful film in the United States and Canada (behind the Shrek film series).