Will these superhero and fantasy blockbusters ever get made? 2019 edition.

Is the era of the Hollywood 'universe' coming to an end?

Movie characters.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures, Sony Pictures, Jonathan Olley, Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/DC Comics, Dreamworks Animation, jessicahyde/iStock)

Three years ago, I wrote a column called "Will these superhero and fantasy blockbusters ever get made?," which ran through the major movie franchises, and assessed the likelihood that we'd ever actually see the films the studio executives had already announced. For example, the third How to Train Your Dragon movie was, at the time, scheduled for May 2018, and I predicted that one would definitely get a release.

And I was right! Sort of. This weekend, the last part of the Dragon trilogy, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, arrives in U.S. theaters, after opening overseas in January. Granted, that's later than DreamWorks Animation had planned. Due to a long and expensive production, audiences around the globe are seeing The Hidden World nearly five years after How to Train Your Dragon 2.

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Noel Murray

Noel Murray is a freelance writer, living in Arkansas with his wife and two kids. He was one of the co-founders of the late, lamented movie/culture website The Dissolve, and his articles about film, TV, music, and comics currently appear regularly in The A.V. Club, Rolling Stone, Vulture, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.