Cate Blanchett Cast as Valka in Highly Anticipated Live-Action How to Train Your Dragon 2

Well, this is a twist I didn’t have on my fantasy casting bingo: Cate Blanchett is jumping back on board (literally) for Universal’s live-action remake of ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’. Yep, you read that right. She’s not just coming in as a new face—she’s reprising her animated role as the Viking warrior Valka, and honestly, it’s hard to imagine anyone else swinging a sword and bossing around dragons quite like she does.

Who Is Valka Again?

A quick refresher if you’re fuzzy on your Dragon lore: Valka is Hiccup's long-lost mother and Stoick the Vast’s equally stubborn wife. She’s more or less erased from Berk’s history after she’s snatched by a dragon when Hiccup is just a baby—everyone assumes she’s dead. Surprise! She turns up nearly two decades later after a chance meetup with her now-grown son, just in time to help him out of a major villain mess. As for her companion dragon, she rides Cloudjumper—the same one that abducted her all those years ago. That’s some impressive forgiveness.

Backstage: Creative Team and Cash

Here’s another smart move: Dean DeBlois, the director, writer, and basically architect of the whole franchise, is back to steer this sequel. He’s the guy who made the original animated movies work, after all. The first live-action ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ pulled in some serious box office receipts ($636 million worldwide, not that anyone’s counting) and managed to win over both the olds and the zoomers, which is pretty rare for a remake. These films are all rooted in the original Cressida Cowell books, so there’s no shortage of weird viking lore to keep mining.

Who’s on the Longship This Time?

Not to geek out, but this is a cast list worth paying attention to:

• Cate Blanchett – back as Valka
• Mason Thames
• Nico Parker
• Gerard Butler (no surprise there... Stoick again)
• Julian Dennison
• Gabriel Howell
• Bronwyn James
• Harry Trevaldwyn

Basically, it's a mix of returning faces and new blood, with a couple of heavyweights to keep things interesting.

So, What's the Story?

The sequel picks up with Hiccup (and Toothless, obviously) stumbling across a massive frozen cave swarming with wild dragons and their mysterious protector. No big deal, except it yanks our heroes—and, clearly, their mothers—right into a fresh round of dragon drama. Sounds familiar? That’s because the animated ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ (from 2014) laid out this blueprint, with the voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, and, again, Blanchett, doing the heavy lifting. Now we get to see it all fleshed out with actual humans and much more expensive CGI.

Why Cate Coming Back Matters

Look, I get a little wary of live-action remakes, but keeping people like Blanchett and Butler in the mix actually helps these movies keep their soul. It’s proof that the studio is at least trying to get this right, rather than cashing in and running for the hills. Plus, Blanchett is just ridiculously good at this stuff.

'There’s something to be said for a remake that keeps its key players instead of recasting just for the PR value. You want the transition to live-action to feel like an upgrade, not just a reboot with new faces.'

If you’re already itching to see all of this in live-action glory, brace yourself: it won’t hit theaters until 2027. Long wait, but at least the ingredients look solid so far.