A production crew member on How To Train Your Dragon 2 reportedly lost multiple fingers while working on the live-action sequel.
Production is currently underway on the follow up to last year’s How to Train Your Dragon, with filming taking place at Sky Studios Elstree near London after beginning in February.
As reported by Variety, the crew member, who is believed to be a special effects technician, had been working off-set in a workshop when an accident occurred involving a saw.
The individual reportedly severed multiple fingers on one hand, and they were not able to be reattached despite extensive surgery. The Independent has contacted Universal Pictures for comment.
Scheduled for release in June 2027, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is the second film to be based on Cressida Cowell’s children’s book, which was first adapted as an animated film by DreamWorks in 2010.
Mason Thames stars as the film’s lead, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the weak outcast son of a Viking chief who ends up befriending a dragon called Toothless.
Returning from the first film alongside Thames are Nico Parker, Gabriel Howell, Julian Dennison, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Nick Frost and Gerard Butler, while Cate Blanchett will play Valka, who she voiced in the animated film.
The reported accident on the set of How to Train Your Dragon 2 comes one year after Bectu, the union for film and TV crew members in the UK, issued a statement with producers’ union Pact.
According to research by the unions, safety risks to workers were linked to staffers being asked to return to work before the rest periods negotiated in their contracts, known as “broken turnaround”.
In a survey of nearly 500 film and TV crew members, 90 per cent said that breaking turnaround impacted their ability to do their job safely and effectively. One in four respondents said that the impact of working broken turnaround included driving while tired, falling asleep or nearly falling asleep at the wheel, getting into crashes and/or car accidents, and "near-misses".
The issue of on-set safety for crew was brought to public attention in 2021, when a shooting on the set of the film Rust led to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and the injury of director Joel Souza.
Hutchins was shot with a revolver that actor Alec Baldwin was holding in rehearsals, with the involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin being dismissed by a New Mexico judge in 2024.
