How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Trailer

Trailer for the CG-animated film How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, starring Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig and Kit Harington.

From DreamWorks Animation comes a surprising tale about growing up, finding the courage to face the unknown ... and how nothing can ever train you to let go. What began as an unlikely friendship between an adolescent Viking and a fearsome Night Fury dragon has become an epic adventure spanning their lives. Welcome to the most astonishing chapter of one of the most beloved animated franchises in film history: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

Now chief and ruler of Berk alongside Astrid, Hiccup has created a gloriously chaotic dragon utopia. When the sudden appearance of female Light Fury coincides with the darkest threat their village has ever faced, Hiccup and Toothless must leave the only home they've known and journey to a hidden world thought only to exist in myth. As their true destines are revealed, dragon and rider will fight together -- to the very ends of the Earth -- to protect everything they've grown to treasure.

This franchise has one of the strangest distribution agreements we've ever seen. While the entire trilogy was produced by DreamWorks Animation -- a great trilogy indeed -- each installment was distributed by a different studio. How to Train Your Dragon was handled by Paramount, with the sequel, How to Train Your Dragon 2, ending up over at 20th Century Fox.

So who was the lucky studio to land distribution rights for The Hidden World? Universal Pictures. Boom.

I love this franchise. While the second installment didn't impress me as much as the first, things are looking strong for this final outing. The story looks excellent, the visuals look chill-inducing, and I love the boost in glow-colors. Sort of like Avatar, but with dragons.

With just under a year to go before the film's release, I can only imagine the improvements we'll see between this How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World trailer and the last. But it already looks awesome.