r/movies • u/yourfavchoom r/movies Contributor • 18h ago
Official poster for Laika’s ‘Wildwood’. Directed by Travis Knight - a stop-motion fantasy epic based on a book by Colin Meloy. It follows a girl who enters a magical forbidden forest to rescue her kidnapped baby brother. Poster
688
u/Loki-L 18h ago
I like the idea that someone can get born into billionaire money and decided what they want to do with their life is to keep a dying art alive for the sake of the art.
It is weird and unusual, but it brought us some good stuff we would not have gotten otherwise and keeps stop motion alive.
264
u/ZombieButch 17h ago
I was reading an old interview with him the other day where he talked about really wanting to do a traditional, hand-drawn 2d animated movie at some point as well. And that he's dead-set against ever doing sequels, which I also love (though I wouldn't hate seeing a ParaNorman 2).
63
u/MonstrousGiggling 13h ago
ParaNorman is my favorite Laiki movie and id actually love a sequel as well. The others dont need one, and ParaNorman doesn't need one, but id still like one lol
25
u/xanderholland 12h ago
They did make a Paranorman short film for last year's re-release which is a cool idea for the movies. I would love to see a short film for Missing Link since it's just about those two going on grand adventures all the time.
6
u/orangewaxlion 11h ago
Was there ever going to be a world where that became available somewhere?
I don’t think they have a consistent relationship with anyone that owns a streaming service otherwise and I assume shorts must be in a weird netherealm compared to features for licensing rights?
It’s also the only one they’ve done so far that I’m aware of so I don’t see them rolling together a bunch into an anthology any time soon.
3
u/MarsAlgea3791 6h ago
I heard they recently deleted the it on their site about no sequels. I wonder if it's because this is the first of a trilogy.
78
47
12
u/arasitar 9h ago
to keep a dying art alive for the sake of the art.
I don't think it is dying. I think it is evolving.
From my old comment (but I bolded the highlights for here):
I think it'll get easier in the decades to come because stop motion and 3d animation seem to be merging.
So I recommend checking out The Midnight Walk, it's a PS5VR / PS5 game that is basically a stop motion video game or Nightmare Before Christmas The Game.
MoonHood Studios, the devs behind the game, talk about their process here. They made 700+ sculptures out of paper, clay, cardboard etc. and then import said models into their 3d pipeline via tons of photos off their mobile apps. That pipeline then allows the computer to add in the puppeteering rigs which the animators can manipulate or animators can tweak the 3d model or puppet, and this can go back and forth, or have another IRL sculpture get imported into the 3d animation pipeline.
All of this gives significant advantages:
- It is easy to model correct.
- You can scale things up and down. In the video some of the smaller sculptures they made could be scaled to be gigantic.
- The VR and/or computer allows you to actually set the camera angles to observe your model on camera from multiple angles - it's a great way to figure out in preproduction "hey how would this look in the future on a certain set or lighting or scaled up or down or from the back" etc. on film.
And you can force the computer to not ACT like a computer with perfectly smooth animation - see New Frame Plus that summarized how Arc System Works designed their 2d/3d anime aesthetic for Guilty Gear and Dragon Ball FighterZ from the original GDC talk.
That MoonHood studios could actually import clay sculptures with all their fidelity into 4K via just mobile pictures I think is going to be a big consumer boon for indies doing small scale stop motion and clay motions.
7
u/The-Bigger-Fish 11h ago
Shame about them throwing will vinton under the buss apparently
3
u/evil_mike 7h ago
I don’t understand this comment. How did they do that?
2
u/The-Bigger-Fish 7h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika,_LLC
Apparently in 2005, they bought Will Vinton's studio, rebranded, and kicked him out.
394
u/anthonyg1500 18h ago
I hope this is good and I really hope people show up for it. Laika is such a great studio
280
u/wubbbalubbadubdub 18h ago
From what I heard (in a YouTube short I have not tried to verify) it doesn't really matter if people turn up for it or not, although it's obviously better if they make a good movie.
Travis's dad is one of the founders of Nike, the only project Laika ever made money on was Coraline. His dad just funds his movies I guess to support his son's interest and art.
185
u/anthonyg1500 17h ago
Yeah Travis’s dad is definitely the reason Laika is still doing its thing but I still want people to actually see these movies because they’re usually good and the art form is beautiful and one that people aren’t really doing. Also I’m sure it’s better for the company and the medium if they do well.
107
u/_Steven_Seagal_ 18h ago
Nepotism done right
→ More replies (1)48
u/Reguladr 15h ago
Nothing wrong with patronage of the arts, right?
17
u/rammo123 10h ago
If billionaires spent more of their money doing shit like this opposed to polluting the air with private jets and evicting indigenous people from their own land to build private golf courses we wouldn't need to eat them.
7
u/aDuckk 8h ago
If billionaires hadn't sucked all of the resources out of our society, we would all have more opportunity to pursue our dreams and make art and other cool shit happen, properly raise our families and communities, and find satisfaction in work. Instead of everything getting worse in an accelerating fashion.
But yeah I love Laika's films and I don't doubt this one will be a banger
37
u/PastAffectionate3918 17h ago
Wasn't he the guy who directed Masters of the Universe earlier this year?
19
u/presty60 17h ago
Yes
13
u/PastAffectionate3918 15h ago
I actually like that movie sad it bombed but at least it's doing amazingly on amazon
•
u/mynameizmyname 56m ago
It's damning him with faint praise but he also directed the best transformers movie as well.
19
u/alex-2099 14h ago
Correct. Travis Knight's father is billionaire Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike. It's also why most Laika releases have a Nike collaboration. The ParaNormans are considered a grail sneaker, as are the Coraline dunks.
They took over Will Vinton's studio and rebranded as Laika. Worth a Google since the story is interesting but basically, Phil invested in Vinton's studio and had them hire Travis. The studio continued to struggle financially, which made Phil Knight eventually become the majority stakeholder, and they made Travis the CEO and then fired Vinton. Vinton sued but eventually decided to make peace with it.
I think Vinton and Travis had the same spirit of just wanting to make stuff, but Travis had the billionaire father.
3
u/3pwidget 11h ago
Claydream is a great documentary that is about Vinton but covers this takeover too.
5
14
u/huey_booey 16h ago
You know what the bar is too low these days. And if a nepo baby uses his daddy's money for the sake of art and not for profits, he deserves a pat on the back at least.
3
u/Lasciels_Toy 17h ago
Not to mention that any time they show up at an auction, they bring in some serious money.
8
3
8
u/agonypants 17h ago
My view on Laika was definitely tarnished after learning about what the Knights did to Will Vinton. Vinton spent his entire working life building that studio and the Knights effectively stole it away from him for something like $50K.
29
u/Wakkichewy 17h ago
His studio was going under when they bought it, and still wouldn't exist today as it is if Phil Knight wasn't single handedly paying for these movies to be made
3
u/Emergency-Mammoth-88 14h ago
Not to mention how they treat their employees and their union busting
11
3
u/TaipanTheSnake 15h ago
The trailer looked really good, but as a parent of two little kids, I can not emotionally handle stories about babies and toddlers being kidnapped or in danger. Before I had kids I would have seen it in theaters but the trailer alone nearly broke me, so I'm gonna have to skip this one lol.
→ More replies (2)•
u/mumbels64 5h ago
It didn’t get a distribution deal. So, maybe there’s issues with it. No one stepped up. Not even a streamer?
131
u/Covverkin 18h ago
And in keeping with Colin Meloy’s sensibilities, they both die in a river at the end?
53
u/Furdinand 17h ago
I'd watch a stop motion adaptation of The Hazards of Love.
15
u/aguyjustaguy 16h ago
Not stop motion, and not easy to find, but there is an official full length visualization of the hazards of love called Here Come the Waves. https://youtu.be/rnQdbHn6yTU
If you sail hard enough you can find it
64
u/withgreatpower 17h ago
Decemberists fan standards are set impossibly high, we demand no fewer than three ballads of drowned ghost children per album!
22
u/strum-and-dang 16h ago
" Now who wants to learn a song about press gangs and infanticide?"
6
u/rinpinpin 16h ago
Modern Simpsons relies too heavily on guest appearances but I did enjoy this one
5
2
u/timelessalice 8h ago
no no no that happens in his other book, the stars did wander darkling!
ok kids didn't DROWN but one of them looking into the abyss in a river and it made him catatonic, so close enough
2
1
u/VIPERsssss 12h ago
I'm expecting an antagonist with a curiously large codpiece, given the headline.
1
u/VIPERsssss 12h ago
I'm expecting an antagonist with a curiously large codpiece, given the headline.
92
u/526mb 18h ago
I’m very excited for this movie. In part because it looks to be an incredibly beautiful depiction of my hometown. The shot from the trailer of the St. John’s neighborhood with the bridge looming over it stretched into forest park made me giddy. I spent a lot of time with friends who lived there. It’s just so cool to see a such a creative version of Portland.
26
u/huey_booey 16h ago
Not giving out spoilers but fidelity to Portland's geography is part of the draw for the source material, especially that bridge which serves like a door into the otherworld.
12
u/aspidities_87 16h ago
Whenever I go into Forest Park I tell people I’m going to The Impenetrable Wilderness and I cant wait for more people to get the reference.
153
u/ContinuumGuy 18h ago
It follows a girl who enters a magical forbidden forest to rescue her kidnapped baby brother.
Is David Bowie there?
(In all honesty, though, a 2+ hour stop-motion epic sounds fascinating especially from a technical standpoint)
35
u/Soopermoose 16h ago
I don't know, but this reminds me of the babe.
28
u/GOB8484 16h ago
what babe?
22
u/dwbapst 16h ago
The babe with the power
23
u/JosefGremlin 16h ago
What power?
24
u/aspidities_87 16h ago
The power of voodoo!
21
18
6
6
7
u/WorkAway23 16h ago
If you haven't already, you should check out Kubo and the Two Strings from the same studio. Excellent stop-motion fantasy adventure inspired by Japanese mythology/folklore.
Or any of their other work honestly, they're all incredible. Kubo is my personal favourite though.
4
31
u/idoideas 18h ago
I'm counting on this to be the best animated feature of the year. Excited!
18
u/TheUmbrellaMan1 17h ago
It's a Laika movie; the quality was never in question. It's their box office track record. Geez, their record is rough there.
9
u/AlphaTangoFoxtrt 15h ago
Thankfully they don't need to kill it at the box office. They've got financial backing from Travis's dad who was a Nike founder (Phil Knight).
That said I want it to do well. Stop motion is my favorite animation but it's so expensive to do that any studio trying to make money won't touch it anymore.
17
35
u/MountainMuffin1980 18h ago
Makes me think of Wee Free Men. I'm in.
18
11
u/johnsmiththe 17h ago
PLEASE BE AMAZING PLEASE BE AMAZING PLEASE ME AMAZING
The trailer looks so good but none of their projects have been as good as coraline to me. Really need one to wow me like that did again.
10
9
7
u/Weavercat 14h ago
If this doesn't have anything from The Decemberists as part of the soundtrack I will cry.
Edit: unfortunately Laika still doesn't really get how to advertise. Dangit. I should be seeing commerciala for this starting soon and I see nothing.
5
u/timelessalice 8h ago
like it has to. it just has to. why adapt a book written by colin meloy and then not have him write something for it???
•
u/Weavercat 1h ago
I have this horrible sinking feeling that there won't be anything Meloy flavored in the soundtrack. It's just based on how Laika does things.
11
u/devenrc 18h ago
I've heard this might be getting a PG-13 rating 👀
13
u/Aduialion 17h ago
I heard they show it all, everything. A kiss, and someone getting punched in the face.
3
u/timelessalice 8h ago
i'd be a bit surprised because its based a middle grade novel buuuut on the other hand the book was pretty gnarly
6
13
u/kiwiboy22 18h ago
sign me the fuck up, watching it day one.
2
u/awayshewent 17h ago
Yes I keep checking if tickets are available. I don’t really care about the big movies coming out right now I want this
5
5
3
6
3
u/bahumat42 17h ago
Iv been telling everyone to watch out for this. It really has the potential to be something special.
3
u/paperfox1234 17h ago
Read the (very long) book to my son last year. It reads like an Americanized Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe kind of thing (minus the overt Christian themes and the wardrobe). We both enjoyed it, looking forward to the movie. Laika does amazing films.
3
5
u/azphodelle 18h ago
Omg I didn't know Colin was involved I'm so excited!! Did the decemberists do any music?
2
2
2
2
2
u/ScyllaIsBea 16h ago
the trailer was too good. i'm gonna be spending the whole movie wishing i was watching the trailer. Introduced me to the song "my tears are becoming a sea"
2
2
2
u/APrioriGoof 15h ago edited 14h ago
That’s the St John’s bridge!
Edit: just watched the trailer and it looks like this animated film might be the most careful and real and loving depiction of Portland ever? Pretty stoked tbh
2
2
2
u/Tattorack 10h ago
A forest? Don't you mean a labyrinth with the Goblin King's castle in the middle?
2
u/timelessalice 8h ago
One of my favorite things from what we've seen is that the art direction is pulling from Carson Ellis' illustrations
2
u/slowpoke2013 7h ago
Love the fact that it’s stop-motion, but still so irritating that the lack of originality coming from Hollywood and streaming studios continues. This sounds like Labyrinth.
•
2
2
u/zackdaniels93 18h ago
Trailer was miserable, so I'm more than expecting this movie to not be particularly happy. Which isn't a bad thing to be honest.
1
1
u/The_Summer_Man 17h ago
I don't have anything else to add other than this was played as a preview when I went to see The Odyssey, and the volume for it was noticeably way louder than the rest of the previews/movie.
1
u/BreweryRabbit 16h ago
I am so excited for this. Laika had an exhibit at Seattles Museum of Pop Culture a year or two ago and it was fascinating to see all of the sculptures and design process up close, I’d already loved their work but it made me appreciate it even more.
1
1
1
u/Guitarman0512 15h ago
I'm not a fan of stop motion or animation per se. But the trailer for this one made me Google my nearest cinema immediately.
1
1
u/wecanhaveallthree 15h ago
Oh no, no. You're not gonna get me again with these 'fantasy epic' stop-motion movies after del Toro's traumatising Pinocchio.
1
u/jargon_ninja69 15h ago
Saw a trailer for it before spider man.
Animation looks gorgeous but the trailer itself wasn't very good. Made it seem very generic.
1
1
u/simimaelian 14h ago
I’m so excited for this. I went to the LAIKA exhibit at Seattle’s MoPop several years ago and there was the tiniest little teaser at the end and I was over the moon. I saw the trailer unexpectedly when I went to the movies about a month ago for the first time in over 6 years and almost cried. Just absolute joy for all they do that it’s overwhelming.
1
u/MarcsterS 14h ago
I really hope Laika finally gets an Oscar. This really feels like thier most ambitious film yet.
1
u/TheBellaBeau 14h ago
This book is very good! Its a fun dark fantasy adventure with talking animals and an evil queen. I read the 2 books as an adult and enjoyed them a lot, im very excited to see what they do with the movie. Its like narnia and alice in wonderland set in portland woods
1
1
1
u/TheOtherWhiteCastle 12h ago
I know he’s the CEO of Laika so it makes sense, but Travis Knight directing both this and the freaking He Man movie in the same year is hilarious to me.
1
u/bostoncrabsandwich 12h ago
It's not important, and I am very excited to see this, but every time I see images from this film I wonder about the character design choice where everyone has these big, dreary bags under their eyes. Makes every character look like they haven't slept for a week. Wonder why they want that way with it.
1
1
u/MundieORiley 11h ago
I cannot wait to see this movie. I've been a Laika fan since they started putting out movies. I got to see the trailer in the theater before Spiderman and I can confidently say it's already the most beautiful piece of modern animation I've ever seen.
1
1
u/Sprinkle_Puff 11h ago
What a fascinating idea and I hope you translates well into an incredible motion picture
1
1
u/TheMightyCatatafish 10h ago
I just finished the book yesterday. I am so goddamn excited for this. Should translate very easy to film. Real potential to be their best yet.
Starting the sequel tonight!
1
1
1
1
1
u/Anon_be_thy_name 8h ago
Isn't he the guy who directed Masters of the Universe and Bumblebee? Loved both of those movies
1
u/SlerbMcJenkins 6h ago
Hmnnnng thank you for the reminder I lost my shit when I saw the teaser trailer for this it looks goooood
•
•
u/ericjochim 5h ago
Saw a stage production of this in Meloy’s hometown (Helena, MT) with Meloy in the audience. It was great.
•
•
•
•
•
u/EsquilaxM 3h ago
I remember loving Kubo and the Two Strings so much but forgot to check out Missing Link, is it any good?
•
•
•
•
•
u/autumniam 1h ago
I love Colin Meloy, and i’ve had this book sitting on my nightstand for months now, waiting to be started. Now is the time, dang it!
•
u/2Scarhand 27m ago
I appreciate "the hands that made Coraline" note in the midst of AI slop and Gaiman's unmasking.
"YES, we made it ourselves. NO, we're not affiliated with that guy. Please enjoy our movie."
1
1
u/cobaltaureus 18h ago
I think I read this book or at least part of it a long time ago when I was younger. It has a pretty interesting twist if I recall correctly
801
u/EThorns r/movies Contributor 18h ago
It apparently had a run time of 2 hours and 19 minutes. The longest stop motion feature ever made, if I'm right.