Will the How to Train Your Dragon franchise pick up its first Oscar with The Hidden World ... or lose once again to a Toy Story movie?
It's waaaaayyyyy too soon to know what's up with Oscars 2020, but How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has already been seen by millions of people around the world, and those people loved it.
So Variety already got the ball rolling by speculating about How to Train Your Dragon 3 as a possible contender to win the franchise its first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
This is a tough year for that kind of talk -- with Toy Story 4 and Frozen 2 on the way -- but word on the street has been fabulous for How to Train Your Dragon 3. That said, both Tom Hanks and Tim Allen said they could barely finish recording their lines for Toy Story 4 because it was so emotional. Emotion sells.
The first How to Train Your Dragon movie was nominated alongside Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist at the Oscars airing in 2011. Toy Story 3 won. The first Frozen movie won at the 2014 Oscars, not competing against Toy Story or Dragons. How to Train Your Dragon 2 ended up nominated for the 2015 Oscars -- alongside The Boxtrolls, Song of the Sea, and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya -- but they all lost to Big Hero 6.
Disney tends to dominate the Best Animated Feature category, and there are a lot of Disney movies coming out this year in general. But if ever a How to Train Your Dragon movie had a shot at the big prize for DreamWorks Animation, this is it.
Hiccup voice actor Jay Baruchel said the conclusion of Hiccup and Toothless' journey would leave fans sad but satisfied. That seemed to be the case for critics, who saw the film first, and then the lucky fans who flocked to early sold-out screenings around the country. Fans were left in tears, but also gushing with praise for the movie. The Hidden World opened early in foreign markets and it's already making a lot of money.
How to Train Your Dragon opens in theaters over here on February 22. It will be a long time before we hear anything about its Oscar chances for 2020, but history suggests it will at least be nominated.
The 2019 Oscars haven't even been awarded yet -- they're coming Sunday February 24, 2019. The films nominated for the Best Animated Feature of 2018 are Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs, Mirai, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The 2019 movie year is just getting started, and there are a lot of animated and live-action titles to keep track of, so bookmark our handy 2019 movie schedule.
