How To Train Your Dragon 2 Has Already Been Announced Ahead Of The First Movie, And I Need Cate Blanchett To Return Stat

Hiccup's hand on Toothless in live-action How To Train Your Dragon movie

(Image credit: Universal Pictures)

The CinemaCon festivities have continued in Las Vegas, Nevada on Wednesday with the Universal Pictures and Focus Features Panel. While CinemaBlend was in attendance at the event, Universal started things off by announcing that a second How To Train Your Dragon live-action movie is already in the works ahead this summer's remake being among upcoming 2025 movies hitting theaters this June.

As a longtime fan of the DreamWorks movies, when I heard the news, I couldn't help about the character I'm most excited to see in live-action: Hiccup's mom, Valka. And who voiced the role in the 2014 animated movie? Cate Blanchett.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 Has Already Been Announced

I'll get to Ms. Cate in a moment. First, here's how director Dean DeBlois announced the sequel to CinemaCon attendees:

While this will be the first live-action dragon movie coming to your theaters it will not be the last. We’re thrilled to tell you How To Train Your Dragon 2 will be flying into theaters on June 11, 2027.

CinemaCon attendees actually started their days with a premiere screening of the live-action How To Train Your Dragon, which has already earned high praise from audiences. Our site's own Jessica Rawden called it "everything a live-action remake should be: funny, emotional, and sentimental – yet epic in scope." Other first reactions called it "gorgeous," "adorable" and had some even in tears.

Valka talking to Hiccup in How To Train Your Dragon 2 — (Image credit: DreamWorks)

I'm Going To Need Cate Blanchett To Join Live-Action Berk

The announcement of the sequel shows a huge vote of confidence from Universal about the success of the summer movie, but now I won't stop thinking about Cate Blanchett being another one of the animated voices from the How To Train Your Dragon movies who should reprise their role in live action.

In the first movie, which is just two months from release, Gerard Butler came back to play Hiccup's dad, Stoick, but in live-action. He called the costume and massive beard "five pieces of hell," and this time he and the cast battled freezing weather while making it, but it sound like it might have been worth it.

As you might recall from the sequel to How To Train Your Dragon, Hiccup and Toothless's second adventures takes place five years after the events of the first movie, at a time where a 20-year-old Hiccup and his Night Fury encounter his long-lost mother and a ruthless dragon hunter named Drago Bludvist, played by Djimon Hounsou.

When Dean DeBlois, who was the writer/director of the original trilogy along with these live-action versions, made the sequel for How To Train Your Dragon, he was inspired by the first sequel to Star Wars. I'm so excited to see what the production is going to do with the second movie, but I need to see this summer's version first!

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Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.