Universal Pictures has revealed that it has spent more than $50 million on the upcoming live-action How to train your dragon movie before filming even started.

Universal is betting big on the children’s film, as it is the first live action remake of one of the Dreamworks animated films. If How to train your dragon is a success, it could be the first of many remakes as Dreamworks’ selection is also the hugely successful one Kung Fu Panda, Shrek And Madagascar movies. It has a powerful precedent, as Disney’s remakes of the classic cartoons have added a magical touch to the studio’s bottom line, as we reported.

It makes sense for Universal to start doing it How to train your dragon as the trilogy of animated films grossed a total of $1.7 billion and earned four Oscar nominations.

The live-action version will be released in June next year and will star teenager Mason Thames, who received critical acclaim for his role in Scott Derrickson’s 2021 horror film. The black phone. In How to train your dragon he plays Hiccup, a young Viking who eschews the family tradition of slaying dragons when he befriends an adorable winged creature named Toothless, who will be a digital character from effects specialists Framestore in the upcoming film.

Hiccup’s hirsute father Stoick the Vast is voiced by Gerard Butler in the animated films, and he reprises the role in the live action version. He is joined by Nick Frost as the blacksmith Gobber the Belch, while Hiccup’s classmate and love interest Astrid is played by child star Nico Parker, daughter of Mission: Impossible actress Thandie Newton.

New footage from the film’s filming was revealed last week and showed just how faithful the original is. An even more momentous revelation around the same time revealed that this authenticity came at quite a cost.

The budgets of films made in the United States are usually a closely guarded secret, as studios include their costs in their overall expenses and do not specify how much they spent on each film. Films made in the United Kingdom are an exception to this How to train your dragon is one of them. The movie was filmed on the steep hills of Northern Ireland, which also serve as the Vikings’ Scandinavian homeland of Berk.

Studios filming in Britain benefit from the government’s audiovisual spending credit, which gives them a cash refund of up to 25.5% of the money they spend there. To be eligible for reimbursement, at least 10% of the production costs must relate to activities in Great Britain. To demonstrate this to the government, studios in Britain are setting up separate production companies for each film they make there.

The companies have code names so they don’t attract attention from fans when applying for permits to film on location. The Universal Pictures subsidiary is behind it How to train your dragon is called Toothless Productions, a nod to the computer-generated star.

Like most studios, Universal does not discuss the cost of individual pictures and did not respond to an opportunity to comment. This is not necessary, as UK manufacturing companies are required to submit financial statements showing everything from total costs and levels of compensation to the number of staff on the payroll.

The latest return for Toothless Productions was filed last week and shows that a total of $53.5 million (£42.2 million) had been spent on making the film as of December 31, 2023. This covered the pre-production period, as principal photography didn’t begin until January this year, after being postponed from July 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

The documents show that 119 employees worked on production in the nine months to the end of last year. Keeping locals employed is one of the reasons the British government gives studios such rich tax incentives. The financial statements show that the company received a refund of $10.6 million (£8.3 million), bringing its net costs down to $42.9 million, which is still a huge amount. There’s a good reason for that.

Among the army of crew members were some of the busiest craftsmen building full-scale sets of iconic locations from the animated films, including an arena where dragon battles take place. There were “a lot of practical sets, so it’s not like we’re in front of a blue screen. We’re there in these big buildings. They built the arena. They did their job well,” said Julian Dennison who plays Hiccup’s friend Fishlegs Ingerman .

Butler added that his authentic Viking costume took its toll on him and probably on the budget. The cost of custom clothing came to light in a recent report which revealed that one of the costumes in this summer’s superhero movie Deadpool and Wolverine had a price tag of $100,000, despite being on screen for less than 10 seconds. Butler was in his threads much longer.

“I had seven layers, thick layers and a thick beard, and then I had some kind of bear or wolf skin over it. It was heavy as shit,” he said. Collider. “When I had my sword and my shield and the helmet, which was heavy, and all those layers with the buckles that went around it, it weighed 90 pounds, my costume. I was soaking wet with sweat inside in the middle of the coldest day, because it was like an oven in there.”

It proves that, though How to train your dragon is a children’s film, it is anything but Mickey Mouse.