Laika's 'Wildwood': A Handcrafted Stop-Motion Epic in an AI Age

When Laika Studios released a teaser for its upcoming film "Wildwood," the response was immediate and overwhelming. The trailer amassed over 90 million views on YouTube, with viewers marveling at the scale and emotional depth of the studio's most ambitious project to date. One comment captured the sentiment: "AI is the future. Laika: Hold my meticulously handcrafted stop motion beer."

Travis Knight, Laika's CEO, was taken aback by the reaction. Even hardened industry veterans, he says, were moved to tears by the preview. He attributes this resonance to the tangible human effort behind the art. "The making of the art leaves fingerprints on the art," Knight explains. "And I think people feel that."

While the tech world races toward AI-generated content, the Portland-based studio has spent two decades championing a slower, more tactile form of filmmaking. Laika blends traditional stop-motion with modern computer-generated techniques, a hybrid approach Knight defends by noting, "We're not Amish." The studio, founded in 2003, has built a loyal following with its gothic, handcrafted tales, even after the commercial disappointment of its 2019 release, "Missing Link."

"Wildwood," which opens in theaters on Oct. 23, may be the culmination of Laika's vision. Based on Colin Meloy's 2011 fantasy novel, the film follows a teenage girl, Prue McKeel, whose infant brother is kidnapped by crows and taken into an enchanted forest in Portland. The voice cast includes Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Jake Johnson, and Jacob Tremblay.

Knight, who acquired the rights to the book before its publication, calls it "everything I love in one film" and believes it is the best work Laika has ever produced. The 16-year journey to the screen required developing new tools and technologies. "We built on all of our learnings from our earlier movies," Knight says. "I felt like: OK, I think we're ready to do it. And we were not."

The result is a staggering production: 136 sets, 231 practical puppets, and a 132-minute runtime that is unusually long for stop-motion animation. One character, a golden eagle named The General, required roughly 3,000 hours to craft. Knight describes these efforts as "great acts of care and devotion," calling the slow, meticulous process a "quiet act of rebellion" in an era of instant digital creation.

Laika's commitment to the handmade has found a receptive audience. A 2024 rerelease of its 2009 debut, "Coraline," generated $52.4 million worldwide, signaling a yearning for tactile storytelling. "Wildwood" is rated PG-13, reflecting the studio's willingness to explore darker themes. For Knight, the story is deeply personal, touching on grief after the loss of his brother and, more recently, his wife's brother and nephew.

"You want the stories you tell to be about something," Knight says. "That often involves climbing into the darkened, cobwebbed corners of yourself and pulling those things out." He believes the painstaking effort imbues the film with a unique magic that audiences can sense. "There is a yearning for something that's handmade, for something that someone has cared into existence," he says. "It's always been rare, it's always been special. But it's even more so now."