After ‘How to Train Your Dragon,’ It’s Time To Remake ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’

For over a decade, Disney has released live-action remakes of its animated classics. While the experiment was originally warmly received with box office hits, audiences quickly turned on it, commonly calling the films blatant cash grabs. 2025 saw the box office flop of Snow White potentially kill the live-action remake craze, only to be seemingly brought back two months later, thanks to the three-weekend straight box office champ Lilo & Stitch. Disney isn’t the only one remaking their animated classics, as Universal Pictures just released How to Train Your Dragon, a live-action remake of DreamWorks Animation’s 2010 animated classic.

Universal feels confident about How to Train Your Dragon and has already green-lit a sequel set for release in June 2027. It is unclear whether Universal Pictures plans to mine DreamWorks Animation’s library (which it acquired in 2016) for more live-action remakes or if How to Train Your Dragon is an isolated case. Movies like The Road to El Dorado, Sinbad: Voyage of the Seven Seas, and Rise of the Guardians feel like natural fits for live-action. However, due to those films being box office flops, it is unlikely Universal Pictures would invest money in remaking them. The idea of a live-action Shrek or Bee Movie sounds horrifying. Yet if this is the path Universal decides to go down, one DreamWorks film might benefit from a live-action treatment: Monsters vs. Aliens.

What Is ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ About?

Monsters vs. Aliens was released in theaters on March 27, 2009, and was the DreamWorks Animation film that preceded How to Train Your Dragon. The film is an animated action-spoof throwback to the B-science fiction films of the 1950s, featuring characters inspired by Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Blob, Mothra, and The Fly, as they face off against an alien invasion pulled straight from War of the Worlds. The film’s plot follows Susan (Reese Witherspoon), who, thanks to a meteorite, is transformed into a 49-foot-tall woman named Ginormica.

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Susan is captured by the United States government and taken to a facility holding fellow monsters, including The Missing Link (Will Arnett), a 20,000-year-old fish-man monster, Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a genius scientist who turned himself into a living insect-humanoid hybrid, and B.O.B. (Seth Rogen), a sentient gelatinous mass. There is also Insectosaurus, a 350-ft-tall bug mutated by radiation. When an alien, Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson), comes to invade Earth, the United States government realizes their only hope lies in fighting fire with fire and using the monsters to protect themselves.

‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ Surprising Legacy

Monsters vs. Aliens received a significant promotional push from DreamWorks Animation, marking the studio’s first major 3D release nine months before Avatar established the format as a must-have for blockbuster films. Monsters vs. Aliens grossed $59 million in its opening weekend, bringing in $198 million domestically and $381 million worldwide. Monsters vs. Aliens was the 11th highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office, outgrossing franchise films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fast & Furious, and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. The movie was both a hit and a disappointment for DreamWorks, given its $175 million budget, and it notably failed to break out in international markets as the studio had hoped.

While plans for a sequel were scrapped, DreamWorks kept the franchise going for a short time. Six months after the movie opened, a Halloween special titled Monsters vs. Aliens: The Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space debuted on NBC. Two short films, B.O.B.’s Big Break and Night of the Living Carrots, were released in 2009 and 2011, respectively. Monsters vs. Aliens got a one-season animated Nickelodeon series from 2013 to 2014.

Despite Monsters vs. Aliens not being the big multimedia hit franchise for DreamWorks Animation that Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, or Trolls were, it still has widespread brand recognition. It has gained a cult following in the 16 years since the film’s release (yes, let that sink in). In 2025, a clip from the short film Night of the Living Carrots featuring General W.R. Monger (Kiefer Sutherland) shoving slop into B.O.B. to eat became a meme titled “Don’t Cry Little Monster.”

Why ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ Should Get a Live-Action Remake

‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ Deserves a Second Chance

Monsters vs. Aliens is one of the few films that could be improved by being adapted into live-action, as it can truly capture the epic scope of the concept. As enjoyable as Monsters vs. Aliens is, the animated movie often struggles to convey scale effectively. Due to the exaggerated features of the human characters and monsters, it sometimes becomes difficult to understand the relative sizes of some characters in relation to one another or their environment, particularly characters like Ginormica and Insectosaurus. Using actual actors and reference material could help sell the movie’s massive, larger-than-life characters more effectively. While B.O.B. would be CGI, characters like Dr. Cockroach and the Missing Link could combine makeup and VFX, and Susan’s size effects could be achieved using forced-perspective cinematography.

Monsters vs. Aliens was largely a spoof of many classic 1950s sci-fi movies that have become part of the public consciousness. It was made during DreamWorks Animation’s peak era of comedy films, which were overloaded with pop culture references. This includes a president played by Stephen Colbert, who is doing a direct send-up of his popular comedic character from The Colbert Report. While this certainly lends itself to a fun comedic romp, Monsters vs. Aliens lacks the emotional maturity of later DreamWorks animated films, such as How to Train Your Dragon, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and The Wild Robot. Remaking Monsters vs. Aliens in live-action could allow for a more straightforward sci-fi epic that can deliver the blockbuster thrills of the title concept.

While that might feel like tossing out what makes Monsters vs. Aliens unique, it can still have plenty of fun taking its B-movie premise seriously. The situations can be serious, but the characters themselves could be the humorous part, like Guardians of the Galaxy. How to Train Your Dragon aims to ground the story in a tactile fantasy adventure, while Monsters vs. Aliens could do the same, but with a sci-fi twist. The original premise is reimagined as a blockbuster epic that embraces the pulpy without shame.

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Something about the 1950s-era sci-fi films has proven challenging to remake. Seemingly obvious movies that are ripe for reinvention, such as Forbidden Planet, Fantastic Voyage, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, and Creature from the Black Lagoon, have been languishing in development hell for decades. Maybe it might be that these films are so tied to the specific era in which they were created. For years, the genre’s aesthetic conventions became synonymous with the target of witty satirical jokes in shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000, making them difficult to take seriously, which the original animated film embraced as part of its comedy.

Yet the upcoming releases of The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman might hint at a moviegoing audience hungry for throwback sci-fi elements. Both movies draw heavily from what is often referred to as the Silver Age of Comics, a period from the 1950s to the 1960s that drew inspiration from popular sci-fi and monster movies of their time. Considering that both films are looking to be some of the biggest movies of 2025, Universal could cash in on that trend with Monsters vs. Aliens.

This is all hypothetical. In a perfect world, Universal wouldn’t fall into the same trap that Disney did by remaking their animated films. Disney itself took four years after Alice in Wonderland to fully capitalize on the live-action remake trend. Maybe How to Train Your Dragon will be the only DreamWorks Animated film to get a live-action remake, but if the film is a hit, there is a good chance it won’t be the only one. If that is the case, in favor of a potential adaptation of Shrek: The Musical starring James Corden as Shrek and Kevin Hart as Donkey, or a live-action Megamind that runs the risk of looking like The Leader or M.O.D.O.K., Monsters vs. Aliens is the best call for a potential live-action remake. Monsters vs. Aliens is available to rent on Prime Video and Apple TV+. How to Train Your Dragon is in theaters now.