Universal announced Thursday that it is moving the release date for DreamWorks’ “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” up a week to February 22, 2019, adding to what is becoming a very crowded month on the release calendar.
Earlier this week, Universal set the Blumhouse horror film “Happy Death Day 2U” for a Valentine’s Day release, and on Wednesday night, Fox released the first trailer for the Marvel film “Dark Phoenix,” which will also come out on Feb. 14. A week before that, WB will release “The Lego Movie 2,” a sequel to the film that began the current hot trend of releasing major blockbusters in February and which escalated with the success of films like “Deadpool” and “Black Panther.”
The third “Dragon” film, which counts voice cast members like Jay Baruchel and Cate Blanchett, moves from a previously scheduled March 1, 2019. Dean DeBlois returns to direct. This will be the first DreamWorks animated film released by Universal since the studio purchased DreamWorks in 2016. Upcoming films from the studio include “Abominable” in September 2019, followed by sequels to “The Croods,” “The Boss Baby” and “Trolls” in 2020 and 2021.
The first two films combined have exceed $1 billion at the worldwide box office, per Box Office Mojo.