Universal Pictures and DreamWorks are teaming up for a live-action feature film version of their popular animated franchise “How To Train Your Dragon” with co-writer/director Dean DeBlois returning to oversee and helm the project. While the 2023 writers and actors’ strike placed the project on pause there is now finally some movement on the casting front with supporting roles being filled. It’s been revealed by The Hollywood Reporter that British actor Nick Frost is set to play Gobber in the live-action incarnation.

He’ll star alongside Gerard Butler (“Plane”), who is reprising the Stoick the Vast, the leader of the island-dwelling Viking clan that is known as legendary hunters and killers of dragons. Stoick is also the father of our protagonist, Hiccup (played by “The Black Phone” actor Mason Thames), who isn’t as brave as other townsfolk until he decides to train/tame a rare dragon type he calls Toothless leading the Vikings to eventually cohabitate with the fire-breathers as sort of a symbiotic relationship in subsequent installments after they have a change of heart. “The Last of Us” actress Nico Parker is also set in the role of Astrid and we’re still waiting who will be cast as the other young Viking characters.

The Gobber part was originally voiced by former late-night host Craig Ferguson in the animated movies.

Frost is maybe best known to audiences for his co-starring role in Edgar Wright’s “Cornetto Trilogy” which he co-wrote with creative partner and star, Simon Pegg. Those films include “Shaun of The Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” and “The World’s End.” He also had a supporting part in “Attack The Block,” an alien invasion flick that introduced many of us to a young John Boyega.

Hiccup is a Norse teenager from the island of Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life. His progressive views and weird sense of humor make him a misfit, despite the fact that his father is chief of the clan. Tossed into dragon-fighting school, he endeavors to prove himself as a true Viking, but when he befriends an injured dragon he names Toothless, he has the chance to plot a new course for his people’s future.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER