Dean DeBlois

Dean DeBlois, a Canadian filmmaker with a knack for breathing life into animated worlds, is the guy behind some seriously major hits. Remember Lilo & Stitch? That was him—co-writer, co-director, and all-around creative force. Same for How to Train Your Dragon. Both of those films? Yeah, they snagged Oscar nods. Before all the Hollywood stuff, DeBlois hustled through Sheridan College’s Classical Animation program while juggling gigs at Hinton Animation Studios in Ottawa. Dude didn’t waste any time: right after graduation in ’90, he shipped out to Ireland, working under Don Bluth on movies like Schromalana and A Troll in the Park. By ’94, he was back across the pond, landing at Disney and quickly jumping into the Head of Story spot on Mulan after his buddy Chris Sanders stepped aside. He and Sanders teamed up again for Lilo & Stitch, which critics called Disney’s last big hand-drawn masterpiece. After that, DeBlois started pitching original live-action projects to studios—The Banshee and Finn Magee, The Lighthouse, Sightings—but as of now, those are all still floating around in development. In 2007, he pivoted a bit, tackling documentary work with Sigur Rós: Heima, which followed the Icelandic band’s epic homecoming gigs. Cut to 2008: DeBlois heads back to animation, jumping in to rescue How to Train Your Dragon at DreamWorks. He and Sanders basically rebuilt the movie from scratch, and it paid off—critics and audiences loved it. He’s also directed music films for Jónsi of Sigur Rós. Right now, he’s busy working on the next How to Train Your Dragon chapter, promising an even bigger adventure.