Since 2009, Laika has made a name for itself as one of the most unique animation studios working in movies today. After making a splash with Coraline back then, they’ve delivered classic films with regularity despite the minutiae required to bring these movies to life, which might be why it’s such a rare medium for feature films today. Their upcoming movie Wildwood is gearing up to be their most ambitious to date, though
ComicBook had the opportunity to visit Laika’s studios in Portland, Oregon, where we saw how the movie was created and spoke to a lot of the key creatives involved in bringing it to life. Among them was screenwriter Chris Butler, best known for writing a slew of Laika’s other titles like ParaNorman and Missing Link (both of which he co-directed), as well as Kubo and the Two Strings. When opening up about the development of the film, Butler confirmed a major influence on Wildwood, not citing another major stop-motion work, but instead noting that Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was partially their North Star.
“I kept thinking about Lord of the Rings, and I think that was more for scope and scale,” Butler revealed. Don’t underwrite it. This is a big, big adventure. It’s epic. It genuinely deserves that word. So I think I was trying to think in terms of that for the scope and scale.”
In addition to Lord of the Rings, Butler noted that the live-action Narnia adaptations were a focal point to, but not for direct influence, adding he looked at them thinking, “How can I subvert that?” Butler revealed that he still thinks about this project in the same way that you would a live-action movie, quickly noting that Wildwood is “by far the most emotionally complex movie” the team has made.
“It’s so often you expect animated characters to be wacky or larger than life, but we were really trying to sell this as real people,” Butler said. “So when you see those puppets on screen, you’re compelled by them. You could get that they’re a puppet. That’s the aim, right? Of course, it’s nice what we do. It’s beautiful that we get to work with these amazing fabricated puppets. But the aim really is what you see on screen to be so compelling that you forget that what you’re watching is being manipulated frame by frame.”
Despite this inspiration from other titles that are well within the fantasy genre, Butler made it clear that making sure to adapt the book written by Colin Meloy with art by Carson Ellis was still really important. As he put it, if you’re adapting a book into a movie, adapt the book, don’t just use it as a springboard for something else.
“I was trying to stay true to the book as much as possible,” Butler said. “Obviously, I had to tweak a few things. There’s a magnificent flight sequence and action sequence, and I took kernels from the book and made them more cinematic or possible. But essentially, I was trying to write by the book. And I met with Colin a couple of times. I remember the first time I met with Colin and Carson. But they were into it. And I think that made me feel more relaxed about it. And I think he also saw that we were treating it right.”
After years in development, Wildwood will debut on October 23.
