Feb 15, 2011 15:50 GMT  ·  By

Arguably the best-animated movie of 2010, “How to Train Your Dragon” is getting a sequel, as expected. With a release date set for 2013, the final details for the film have been taken care of: and Gerard Butler is also on board.

As we also noted a while back, when DreamWorks announced that a sequel would be made, it revealed the cast would also be back, except for Butler.

For some reason or another, the star held back from accepting the offer to reprise his role (voicing duties, that is) of Stoik, Hiccup’s hard to please, tough as it gets father.

Now, Empire has confirmation that Butler too will be back – and it comes from none other than co-director Dean DeBlois, who says that work on the sequel is progressing nicely, according to plan.

“What I presented to them was the second act of a much larger story,” DeBlois says for the movie magazine of the much-anticipated sequel.

“So the film takes on much more breadth, it’s really quite epic. We leave the first film with these Vikings on the backs of dragons, so the world just opens up and expands exponentially,” he adds.

And, yes, Butler will be back as Stoik, the character of which film critics said he drew on his “300” Spartan, King Leonidas, for inspiration.

“The main voice cast was already confirmed to return, including Jay Baruchel (Hiccup), Craig Ferguson (Belch), America Ferrera (Astrid), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Fishlegs), Jonah Hill (Snotlout), TJ Miller (Ruffnut) and Kristen Wiig (Tuffnut),” Empire writes.

“But now the last major holdout, Gerard Butler, has signed on according to DeBlois, and cinematographer Roger Deakins (a BAFTA winner last night) is back to consult on the lighting,” the magazine further reports.

As Empire also points out, the only “bad” thing about “How to Train Your Dragon 2” right now is that it doesn’t come out until the summer of 2013, which means fans have a very long wait ahead of them.