Stop-motion animation has long stood apart in an industry racing toward digital speed.
LAIKA now offers fresh proof with its latest release. The studio dropped the first clip from Wildwood, showing Prue teaming with classmate Curtis inside Portland's enchanted Impassable Wilderness. They face talking animals and bandits as conflict builds. The sequence captures the film's buttery smooth movement and intricate detail.
Director Travis Knight, also LAIKA president and CEO, oversaw the project adapted from Colin Meloy's novel with illustrations by Carson Ellis. Screenwriter Chris Butler shaped the story of headstrong teenager Prue McKeel. Voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, she races to rescue her baby brother after crows snatch him.
Jacob Tremblay voices loyal classmate Curtis Mehlberg. Mahershala Ali joins a deep cast that includes Carey Mulligan and Angela Bassett.
The clip highlights years of handcrafted work.
One crow sequence alone took five years. It draws clear inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Crews built 132 practical sets across more than 100 locations. They printed over 140,000 puppet faces for nuanced expressions, one for nearly every frame.
Head of animation Brad Schiff described the technical demands. “We had fish hooks with monofilament on the puppet pulling up his costume,” Schiff said in a Variety interview, “so that when they put the digital assets in, it would feel like the crows were holding on to him.”
Facial animation lead Benoit Dubuc added further insight into the process.
“Travis really wanted a sense that these birds were threatening,” Dubuc explained. “If you have a few of them swarming around you, that’s scary. But if you have a thousand around you, that’s terrifying.” Production designer Nelson Lowry noted the full scale. “We had to reinvent our processes in so many ways to meet the demands of this project. It was the largest and most complex film we’ve ever done.”
Knight has framed the effort as deliberate resistance. “At a time when entire worlds can be built with a click of a mouse and videos generated from a prompt, choosing to make a stop-motion film feels like a quiet act of rebellion,” he said in an earlier featurette.
The film marks LAIKA's first feature since Missing Link in 2019 and its longest runtime yet.
Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel brought live-action precision to the miniature world. Portland landmarks appear throughout, grounding the fantasy in the studio's hometown.
Wildwood premiered at the BFI London Film Festival to a perfect 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes score from early critics. Reviews praised the emotional weight and visual ambition. Premium fan-first screenings begin October 19 in select large-format theaters nationwide through Fathom Entertainment. Each includes a pre-recorded welcome from Knight. The wide release follows on October 23.
The timing places the film in a crowded awards conversation for animated features.
LAIKA's prior five titles all earned Oscar nominations. This one arrives as the studio doubles down on physical craft. Early social reaction to the clip focused on the fluid puppetry and dense world-building. Viewers noted how the frames feel alive without digital shortcuts dominating.
Lee connected with her character's arc during recording. She described Prue starting confident before her worldview shifts. Tremblay called the voice work a trust exercise with the animators. The finished film runs over two hours and carries a PG-13 rating for its darker fantasy tones.
What comes next is straightforward. Audiences get their first full look next week. Then theaters open for the wider run. LAIKA has already signaled more stories from this world remain possible.
The clip stands as a clear statement. Handmade animation still commands attention when executed at this level.
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