Laika Studios has given us an early look at its next big animation project, Wildwood.
When the subject of stop-motion comes up, there’s a good chance Aardman springs to mind. But Laika Studios is just as important a player, and has just revealed a behind-the-scenes look at its next movie.
Laika Studios calls Wildwood its “most ambitious cinematic journey yet,” which is a big claim given this is the studio behind Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings.
The meat of this preview is a glance at the animation process of one of the film’s key characters, the General.
It’s a golden eagle played by Angela Bassett. And while the final animation looks so smooth you could almost mistake it for CGI, it’s actually a real model with an incredible degree of naturalistic articulation. And upwards of 9000 individually placed feathers.
Have a look for yourself.
Wildwood has an interesting back story of its own too. It’s based on a novel by Colin Meloy, best known as the lead singer of The Decemberists. It was released in 2011, and is part of a chunky trilogy of books, all illustrated by Carson Ellis. She is Meloy’s wife .
Both Laika Studios and The Decemberists are based in Portland, Oregon, and this project has a bafflingly long history. Laika Studios picked up the rights to produce an adaptation of the book in 2011, when only the first in the Wildwood trilogy had been published. Back then, the studio had only made Coraline.
Last year, director Travis Knight told Empire Wildwood was “the hardest thing we have ever done,” and that’s why it has been in the works for so incredibly long.
“A huge part of the reason it’s taken us so long to bring this to life cinematically is that it’s incredibly ambitious,” says Knight, who directed Kubo and the Two Strings and Bumblebee, aka the best modern Transformers movie.
While the rights have been in Laika’s back pocket for ages, the Wildwood movie adaptation was only actually announced properly in September 2021.
Wildwood is due for release in 2026, although we don’t yet have a more specific release window. It will be Laika’s first feature since 2019’s Missing Link.
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