"How To Train Your Dragon 2" Premieres on Friday at Cannes

"How to Train Your Dragon 2."

One of the most widely anticipated animated feature films of the year, DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon 2," is set to premiere on Friday at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

This is a big deal for DreamWorks because several of their recent releases have, quite frankly, stunk to high heaven at the box office (though the quality of their animation is superb. "Rise of the Guardians" in 2012 was a massive flop, and the recent "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" didn't do much better.

The Cannes Film Festival remains a key date on the film industry calendar.

This also happens to be the 20th anniversary of DreamWorks Animation, so it is very important to the company. Jeffrey Katzenberg, then Chairman of Disney, co-founded DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. then with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen (note the three men's initials at the end in the formal name).

The original "How To Train Your Dragon" grossed almost $500 million worldwide and is the focus of theme parks and ice shows and all sorts of other things, drawing in regular cash for the company. The trailers released so far have been spectacular, so a lot of fingers are crossed that this sequel does at least as well as the original. DreamWorks has big plans to expand into China, and a continuation of this successful franchise would work wonders for those plans.

Katzenberg with DreamWorks' property Shrek

Katzenberg is on hand at Cannes, underscoring the importance of this release is getting the studio back on track.

2020