Smurfs, dragons and aliens: Family movies lean into magic and wonder this summer

"How to Train Your Dragon" filmmaker Dean DeBlois has heard the "remake fatigue" concerns. In Hollywood's quest to get family audiences to movie theaters, the industry has often opted to re-package something familiar, lately in the form of a live-action, or hybrid remake. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

That's part of the reason why DeBlois, who directed the animated movies, wanted to also be the person behind the live action remake, coming to theaters June 25. He knew how to do it, and how to do it well.

"We were careful," DeBlois said. "We wanted to make sure that if we were going to do it, we wanted to do with a lot of integrity and love and make sure there's nothing cynical about it."

Several of this summer's family friendly options have come from a personal place including the Rihanna-produced "Smurfs" (July 18) and the Hawaii-shot "Lilo & Stitch" (May 23). And a lot of them are PG-rated, including "The Bad Guys 2" (Aug. 1); "Freakier Friday" (Aug. 8); And the new Pixar movie "Elio" (June 20), about a space fanatic kid whose dream of being abducted by aliens comes true.

The PG rating is having a bit of a resurgence in box office cred after years of being the "uncool" little sibling to PG-13. Last year PG movies made up 1/3 of the annual box office, led by "Inside Out 2."

Rihanna and the Smurfs might seem like an odd match, but the Grammy-winning megastar is "steeped in Smurfs knowledge," according to director Chris Miller. She told Miller that growing up in Barbados, her family's television had one channel, and that channel played the Hanna-Barbera show constantly.

It's why she wanted to produce and star as Smurfette in "Smurfs," a hybrid reboot that takes the little blue creatures on a rescue mission to save Papa Smurf. There have been other attempts (including two with Neil Patrick Harris), but for this one Miller wanted to do something different that drew on the original comics by Belgian artist Peyo.

"I thought, let's make a contemporary version and a real immersive visual experience but reference those drawings," Miller said.

They also had a sharp, witty script from Pam Brady, best known for her collaborations with Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Plus, Rihanna would contribute music too. This, Miller thought, could be really fun.

"Rihanna's performance is so great," he said. "She's really funny and gets to the heart and soul of everything."

Practically everyone in the starry voice cast (which includes Kurt Russell, John Goodman, Nick Offerman, Octavia Spencer, Amy Sedaris and Dan Levy) had some nostalgia for the Hanna-Barbera show. But no one needs a degree in "smurfology" to take a chance on the film. Offerman said it reminds him of "The Lego Movie."

"It has a freshness and a sass that I think makes it appealing and kind of imperative for everybody to see," Offerman said.

The animated "How To Train Your Dragon" films already leaned into a live-action sensibility, but DeBlois took it to the next level for the new version, creating an immersive world where the dragons felt credible, and mythology that went deeper in telling this story of the unlikely friendship between a Viking boy Hiccup (Mason Thames) and a dragon named Toothless.

"It aspires to be and does deliver on the promise of being a crowd pleaser," DeBlois said. "It has thrills and it has adventure and it has wonder, which I think is kind of rare and important."

Nico Parker, who plays the aspiring dragon hunter Astrid, was in awe of the level of detail the production put into the sets and atmosphere in making the isle of Berk feel real, from actual fire to "horrible" ambient fish smells. The dragons too all have animal kingdom counterparts to add to the authenticity - with the exception of Toothless, who they kept a little more fantastical.

"Even though Toothless' eyes are huge and there's no animal on earth, not even a blue whale that has eyes that big, we went with it because the smaller we made the eyes, the less Toothless-like he was," DeBlois said. "We had to make sure that we weren't just creating photoreal dragons, but we were maintaining the personalities."

For as popular as the books and films (which have made over $1.6 billion) are, there are also plenty of people who aren't familiar with the stories. This version might be the thing that draws newcomers in (they’ve already announced a sequel).

"For those who do know the stories and have seen the animated films, it is a bit of nostalgia," DeBlois said. "It's a way of returning to that world and seeing it through a new lens and maybe sharing that experience, perhaps with their own kids now."

The struggle to find something the whole family wants to watch is real.

Jamie Lee Curtis, who reunited with her on-screen daughter Lindsay Lohan for "Freakier Friday," wrote in an email that theirs is a "big spectacle film" with "all the bells and whistles that a big comedy should have" and "deep emotional resonance."

"Elio" filmmaker Domee Shi also promised a blend of a wacky sci-fi adventure and "also a deep and poignant story about loneliness, looking for connection, and finding it where you least expect."

And no matter how many options are available for kids to watch on streaming services and YouTube, out of the home options remain a compelling draw. The box office backs it up: Last year PG movies outgrossed PG-13 movies for the first time in many years.

"PG movies really punch above their weight,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “These films could represent a huge part of the summer box office,"

"Lilo & Stich" director Dean Fleischer Camp thinks the big screen experience remains important for young moviegoers.

"I fell in love with the movies, seeing them in theaters as a kid," he said. “I don't think there's yet any substitute for it.