Wildwood Teaser Trailer Reveals An Iconic Movie Studio’s Next Fantasy Epic
“I don’t want any part of your fairy tale. I just want my brother.”
Animation is an interesting medium because, as realistic as one technique can get, there are still others that can portray something different, but equally compelling. Avatar may show the hyper-realistic possibilities of motion-capture, but that doesn’t negate the nostalgic feeling of a hand-drawn 2D cartoon.
Of all the animation techniques, one stands alone as the most time-consuming and labor-intensive: stop-motion animation. Even as digital animation is evolving quickly, there’s nothing like the tangibility of a stop-motion film — just look at last year’s Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl from Aardman.
After a seven-year hiatus from features, Laika, the studio behind iconic stop-motion stories like Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, is returning with Wildwood, a brand-new fantasy epic full of anthropomorphic animals and rich woodland settings. Check out the teaser trailer for the movie below:
Wildwood is the story of Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a young girl who is drawn into a magical forest near her hometown of Portland, looking for her baby brother Mac, who was abducted by crows. It’s actually based on a novel of the same name written by The Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy and illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis. Ellis’ illustrations, which draw greatly from folk tales and mysticism, are reflected perfectly in Laika’s lush landscapes and quaint woodland creatures.
This project has actually been in the works for 15 years, as Laika optioned Wildwood after producing a trailer for the book. It will be directed by current Laika CEO Travis Knight, who previously directed Kubo and the Two Strings but also has recently moved over to live-action, directing 2018’s Bumblebee and the upcoming Masters of the Universe. It’s an exciting return to animation for Knight, and one that makes Wildwood an even more intriguing new movie.
Wildwood follows Prue, a young Portland girl swept up on an adventure through the Oregon forests to save her baby brother.
This teaser trailer is almost completely devoid of dialogue, with most of the clips solely underscored by M83’s “My Tears Are Becoming A Sea,” but trust that we’ll see plenty of talking animals, including The General, a giant Golden eagle voiced by Angela Bassett. The voice cast also includes Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Richard E. Grant, Jemaine Clement, and dozens more.
Stop-motion is such an interesting medium that is clearly not going anywhere, but Wildwood pushes it to its absolute limits with a story echoing classic fantasy epics like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Never-Ending Story, tales of ordinary children being swept into completely extraordinary — and detailed — fantasy worlds. It may be less scary than Coraline, but this movie could become Laika’s next big epic for the whole family.
