One of our most hotly anticipated summer movies this year is, without a doubt, "How to Train Your Dragon 2." The original film, released in the spring of 2010, was a soaring adventure and arguably the greatest animated feature from DreamWorks Animation. And from everything we've heard, the sequel is going to top it. Which makes us even more jazzed to be able to debut an exclusive featurette from the film, entitled "A Family Reunited."
"One thing I wanted to introduce into this movie is Hiccup discovers this mysterious vigilante who is, in fact, his mother," writer/director Dean DeBlois says on the featurette. DeBlois co-wrote and co-directed the original film with Chris Sanders (the pair were also responsible for Disney's modern classic "Lilo & Stitch").
We get glimpses of Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), the young Viking hero from the first movie and his trusty dragon Toothless, as they encounter this new character, named Valka, who has spent the last couple of decades keeping dragons safe from harm. And she might have a familiar voice, especially for those "Curious Case of Benjamin Button" fans out there. Yep, none other than recent Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett voices Valka.
"I wrote the character with Cate Blanchett in mind," DeBlois confesses. And the rest of the cast, from Gerard Butler, who plays Hiccup's meaty father Stoick the Vast, to Baruchel himself, seem genuinely grateful to be able to play against so much emotional material, especially in an animated kids' movie about dragons.
But it's not all family hugs and tearful get-togethers; the clip also showcases footage of the new bad guy, Drago (Djimon Hounsou), a dragon hunter with designs on world domination. This dude looks scary. And it looks like it's going to take all of the good dragons and Vikings, banding together, to take him down.
"How to Train Your Dragon 2," which premieres on Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival (hey, not too shabby), opens everywhere June 13.