More than 15 years after the release of Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders' adaptation of Cressida Cowell's novels, DeBlois has revisited How to Train Your Dragon as a live-action movie, recreating shot-for-shot the famous boop scene.

Dean DeBlois, director of the new live-action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon, aimed to faithfully recreate the series' most iconic scenes, including the famous 'boop' moment between Hiccup and Toothless. The production team used a combination of puppeteering and choreography, with a foam Toothless head and a carefully coordinated dance-like sequence, to capture the emotional resonance of the original animated film.

Gerard Butler's portrayal of the Viking chief was highlighted for its authenticity, with his costume and performance adding to the character's gravitas. The film also features dynamic action sequences, particularly for the character Astrid, whose fighting style was developed to ensure she appeared strong and inspiring for young viewers.

'How to Train Your Dragon' recreates the iconic Toothless boop

I just wanted to jump straight in to what is arguably the most famous scene in the How to Train Your Dragon series, which is the boop scene. It's the little boop. And recreating that scene must have been quite a challenge in live action. Can you take me through how you approached that particular scene, because I think it's in a lot of people's hearts that love the series. Yeah. Well, we wanted to recreate as faithfully as we could that scene through live action on a stage with our cove set, but almost shot for shot. That exact moment. And also later, the test drive scene when they're flying over the clouds. We wanted those to be really faithful as a tribute to the fans. And the way that we achieved it, really, was relying very heavily upon our team of puppeteers, namely Tom Wilton, who was operating our toothless. So we had a foam head for toothless, and we had a body and a tail. And they had worked out, his puppeteering partner, Sarah, had worked out the footsteps and the sand and the path between all of the drawn lines and how that was going to work. And it just became this dance. It was wonderful, because Mason has a background in ballet. It probably looks just like I'm stepping over some stuff, but going into it, we had about a week and a half of training and practicing that with getting every step on each note for the song, because we had the song playing. And every single thing, it was a dance. And I think ballet really helped with that, getting that down. So just figuring out how they were going to move together, and how toothless was behaving within the scene, beautifully puppeteered by Tom Wilton, and leading up to that moment where there's a hesitation and a touch. But when we started playing the music, John Powell's music on top of it, the whole stage kind of just got really quiet, and it transformed, and it felt like a moment of real wonder in the midst of all of this chaos of filmmaking, where people felt like they were making something special. And you also have Gerard Butler, who is in full This Is Sparta mode, but as a Viking King. Yes. It's right here, right now! What was it like seeing that character brought to life through Butler, who seems to have had the best time ever? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to see him in costume for the first time when we were shooting another scene just next door. And I walked over to the soundstage, and he walked in, and massive, like they'd managed to expand his frame with the giant horns and the cape and everything under it, and he was just in character. I'd been talking to Jerry earlier that day, and then by the time he walked in, he couldn't help but be stoic. And you felt the burden, like the physical burden, but also the burden of his mission and who he was as a failing parent and a failing Viking chief, not able to find the dragon's nest. And it was wonderful, because a couple lines in, he just said, take this thing off of me, it's so heavy. But I felt really convinced that this wasn't Jerry Butler at a renaissance fair. He was definitely our Viking chief. Nico Astrid gets to kick absolute butt. I love her fighting style in this movie. Think at one point you get to chop a tooth with an axe. What did you love about your fighting style in this movie? I mean, that scene particularly was just me on set for the filming of that stuff, and it was my own personal rage room. It was so fun. I think initially it was something that I found incredibly daunting, because it just felt quite... There was something about yelling really loudly and flailing your arms around, I found that actually really vulnerable. But once we started doing it, that stuff was the most rewarding by miles. And I also think that when I watch the film, I always kind of feel very proud of myself and proud of all of the work that we put in to make sure that she looks really strong and she feels really strong, and so that kids can watch it, and she's kind of, at least to me, she kind of feels like the action hero of it in that sense.

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