For anyone who was looking forward to more classes on HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, I have some unfortunate news today. DreamWorks Animation has announced that the third installment has been pushed back a year. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 3, which was facing FINDING DORY and the newly dated release of Shane Black’s THE NICE GUYS has been pushed back to a June 9, 2017 release. I’m skeptical that it will keep that date as well considering THE LEGO MOVIE 2 opens on May 26 and a week later another Pixar movie is released.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 crossed the $600 million mark on Labor Day and while it has become the highest-grossing animated film of the year, and one of the top ten grossing films of the year, it didn’t perform as well as expected stateside. So it makes sense to remove itself from fierce competition; but where will it settle safely? A lot of us thought the sequel was going to dominate the summer but that wasn’t the case; as Dave Davis mentioned in the 2014 Box Office Wrap-up, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES will likely top Dragon domestically pretty soon.
So continuing the trend of sequels finding success the foreign box office while losing steam at home, you have to wonder how this lackluster summer while shape the years to come. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 3 is set to continue the story where the sequel leaves off with the returning cast including Jay Baruchel as Hiccup, America Ferrera as Astrid and Cate Blanchett as Valka.
Did you enjoy HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2? What are you looking for in the sequel?