LOS ANGELES, CA – June 13th, 2025 - Back Lot Music announces the release of Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, with music by Academy Award® nominated, Grammy® nominated, and Emmy® Award-winning composer John Powell. The album is available everywhere digital music is sold and streamed, and to pre-order on CD & vinyl now from Mondo.
How To Train Your Dragon, a stunning live-action reimagining of the film that launched the beloved DreamWorks Animation franchise, hits theaters nationwide today in North America.
Few film scores have left as profound a mark as John Powell’s How to Train Your Dragon, a career-defining work that earned him his first Academy Award® nomination. Nearly 15 years later, Powell returns to revisit the music that shaped the world of Berk—this time for the epic new live-action adaptation. Fresh off his second Oscar® nomination for Wicked, Powell approached the project not as a recreation, but as an evolution, shaping the score to match the film’s expanded scale and emotional depth.
“When Dean first called me about directing the live-action adaptation, my answer was simple: ‘If you’re doing it, I’m in,’” Powell says. “The animated film was already cinematic in its approach to music—more live-action in its sensibilities than most animated scores. So, in many ways, this wasn’t about reinventing anything, but about realizing something that was always present beneath the surface. How to Train Your Dragon has always felt like a grand fantasy epic, even in animation. This adaptation allows it to reach the scale Dean always envisioned.”
For Powell, the most striking part of the process was watching the film take shape as he scored it. “Watching the film evolve during the scoring process was extraordinary,” Powell says. “With animation, I was used to working from rough storyboards or unfinished renders, but even in live-action, a lot of what I was scoring early on wasn’t fully realized yet. As shots became more refined, the film took on this breathtaking intensity. And watching it all come together was one of those rare moments where you hope it will work, and then it exceeds your expectations.”
ABOUT JOHN POWELL
A native of East Sussex, Powell was a mediocre violinist as a child, wrote music for commercials out of school, and assisted composer Patrick Doyle in the early 1990s. He moved to the U.S. in 1997, where he worked on numerous projects for Hans Zimmer and his film music company Remote Control.
Powell was catapulted into the realm of A-list composers by displaying an entirely original voice with his oft-referenced scores to the first installment of Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Identity. He has also become the go-to writer for family animated films, scoring such hits as Shrek and Chicken Run (both co-written with Harry Gregson-Williams), Ice Age: The Meltdown, and the first two installments of Kung Fu Panda (co-written with Hans Zimmer).
His infectious score for How to Train Your Dragon earned him his first Academy Award® nomination. Throughout his career, Powell also collected three Grammy nominations for his scores, ranging from sci-fi to family animation. His most recent film scores include Netflix’s Thelma the Unicorn and That Christmas, as well as Universal Studios’ Wicked directed by Jon Chu, which earned him his second Academy Award® nomination for Best Score.
In addition to his numerous film scores of all genres, John Powell has also written concert works for choir and orchestra. A selection of these has been released with the album Hubris: Choral Works by John Powell, including his deeply moving oratorio A Prussian Requiem commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, (premiered at the Royal Festival Hall) and The Prize is Still Mine, a lament sung by women who call out to the men for the return of their prize, long ago taken and turned into someone else’s history, (featuring Los Angeles Gospel Session Singers). Powell’s next classical record will be an opera titled An Englishman, An Irishman and A Frenchman, written together with Gavin Greenaway and Michael Petry. The story takes place in a bar in heaven focusing on conversations between Wystan Hugh Auden, Oscar Wilde and Jean Cocteau.
ABOUT HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
From three-time Oscar® nominee and Golden Globe winner Dean DeBlois, the creative visionary behind DreamWorks Animation’s acclaimed How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, comes a stunning live-action reimagining of the film that launched the beloved franchise.
On the rugged isle of Berk, where Vikings and dragons have been bitter enemies for generations, Hiccup (Mason Thames; The Black Phone, For All Mankind) stands apart. The inventive yet overlooked son of Chief Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his voice role from the animated franchise), Hiccup defies centuries of tradition when he befriends Toothless, a feared Night Fury dragon. Their unlikely bond reveals the true nature of dragons, challenging the very foundations of Viking society.
With the fierce and ambitious Astrid (BAFTA nominee Nico Parker; Dumbo, The Last of Us) and the village’s quirky blacksmith Gobber (Nick Frost; Snow White and the Huntsman, Shaun of the Dead) by his side, Hiccup confronts a world torn by fear and misunderstanding.
As an ancient threat emerges, endangering both Vikings and dragons, Hiccup’s friendship with Toothless becomes the key to forging a new future. Together, they must navigate the delicate path toward peace, soaring beyond the boundaries of their worlds and redefining what it means to be a hero and a leader.
The film also stars Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2), Gabriel Howell (Bodies), Bronwyn James (Wicked), Harry Trevaldwyn (Smothered), Ruth Codd (The Midnight Club), BAFTA nominee Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Murray McArthur (Game of Thrones).
How to Train Your Dragon is written, produced and directed by DeBlois. It is also produced by three-time Oscar® nominee Marc Platt (Wicked, La La Land) and Emmy winner Adam Siegel (Drive, 2 Guns). How To Train Your Dragon is part of the Filmed For IMAX® Program, which offers filmmakers IMAX® technology to help them deliver the most immersive movie experience to audiences around the world.
Inspired by Cressida Cowell’s New York Times bestselling book series, DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon franchise has captivated global audiences, earning four Academy Award® nominations and grossing more than $1.6 billion at the global box-office. Now, through cutting-edge visual effects, DeBlois transforms his beloved animated saga into a breathtaking live-action spectacle, bringing the epic adventures of Hiccup and Toothless to life with jaw-dropping realism as they discover the true meaning of friendship, courage and destiny.
Get the Soundtrack Here: https://backlotmusic.ffm.to/httyd2025
TRACK LISTING:
1. This Is Real Berk
2. I Hit a Night Fury
3. I Want to Be One of You Guys
4. Conference of the Tribes
5. He’s Not That Boy
6. Searching the Woods
7. Home in the Ring
8. First Dragon Training
9. Sketches of a Wounded Dragon
10. Our Most Valuable Possession
11. I’m Beginning To Question Your Teaching Methods!
12. A Really Forbidden Friendship
13. Carefully Attaching
14. Charming the Zippleback
15. He Has a Way with the Beasts
16. Test Driving Toothless
17. Top Slayer
18. Caught Designing Outfits
19. A Romantic Flight
20. Taken to the Dragons’ Nest
21. Should We Tell Your Father?
22. Waiting To Enter the Ring
23. The Trial of Flame
24. You’re Not My Son
25. What Are You Going To Do About It?
26. Prelude to a Battle
27. Meeting the Queen
28. Allied Forces
29. The Wings of the Beast
30. Finding Hiccup
31. We Have Dragons
32. You Are My Homeward
33. …and finally, The End Credits Suite
For more information on Back Lot Music:
Nikki Walsh, Back Lot Music
(818) 777-9151 | Nikki.Walsh@nbcuni.com