DVDizzy Forum

Dean DeBlois, the filmmaker who wrapped up his celebrated How to Train Your Dragon trilogy earlier this year, has found his first post-Dragon project. After going big with dragons and animation, the filmmaker is going small and live-action with Micronauts, Paramount’s take on the Hasbro toy line. DeBlois will tackle writing duties and will direct. Hasbro’s Brian Goldner, Stephen Davis and Greg Mooradian are producing via the company's film division, AllSpark Pictures.

Micronauts were action figures made in the late 1970s by now-defunct Mego based on a line by Japanese toy company Takara titled Microman. The toys were a big seller for a time and a Marvel Comics comic followed, which helped establish a storyline for the line. The comics told of a Microverse in which diverse worlds were linked together and in which a power-mad dictator named Baron Karza kills the royal family, taking control. A small group of eclectic characters — a pilot awoken from a centuries-long deep sleep, alien gladiators, survivors of the coup — band together to form a resistance.

The project had been in development with J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot for several years and had a script by Deadpool scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who reportedly called it a departure from the comics. It is unclear what the new take is, but it has been described as centering on a group of intergalactic explorers. Paramount has set a June 4, 2021, release date for the pic. Paramount and Hasbro are seeking a family-friendly tone with Micronauts and believe DeBlois could bring to the project the same heart and sophistication that he brought to How to Train Your Dragon.

Unset for the time being is Hasbro’s feature adaptation of 1980s toy line Micronauts from filmmaker Dean DeBlois. Clearly, the movie hasn’t been shot due to COVID, but I hear the project is still real and the studio is just waiting on a script at this point. Micronauts had a release date of June 4, 2021.

DeBlois revealed that behind-the-scenes turmoil derailed the film, as Hasbro partnered with a variety of production companies. "Micronauts just got stalled. It got stalled because there's been a changing of hands. So, Hasbro had their own film division; Paramount was involved. They then partnered with E1, and now they're back to having their own film division. So in all of those exchanges, everybody has different ideas of what a Micronauts movie should be. And so it just continues to sort of move along slowly." DeBlois also shared that the film was written, but his original script had undergone various rewrites, explaining, "I did a script, but it changed as production companies changed hands. So, there were new ambitions and new ideas of what the movie should be. I continue to ride that slow train of development just to see where everyone aligns."