'Paranorman' And 'Coraline' Studio Laika Announces A 2014 Release

I've heard a good number of people say that their favorite late summer film was Laika's Paranorman, and so it may hearten that audience to know that Laika has another film coming. It just isn't coming all that soon. The animation studio has set September 26, 2014 as the date for a film that is as yet untitled. While we don't know the precise identity of the project, we have a couple good ideas to choose from.

There was a point where we thought/hoped that Laika would pick up the Henry Selick movie that Disney canceled, but that isn't happening. So this is something else. What could the 2014 film be? Perhaps Wildwood, the YA novel from Colin Meloy (The Decemberists) and Carson Ellis that Laika picked up in fall 2011, about "Prue McKneel, a young lady who must confront a world filled with magic and danger after her younger brother is kidnapped, forcing her to enter the Impassable Wilderness."

Or it could be the adaptation of Philip Reeve's novel Goblins, which has Mark Gustafson (Fantastic Mr. Fox) set as director, and which features a young Goblin named Scarper, who "understands that dark magic created by a vanquished sorcerer is rising again. From the lands of men come fortune-seekers – and trolls, giants, cloud-midens, boglins, swamp monsters, tree-warriors and bloodthirsty goblins are swept into a fabulous magical conflict."

Regardless, things don't look so bad for the company whose future was once in doubt. Too bad that Laika and Selick couldn't partner again, but I'd be happy to see either of the efforts mentioned above, or something else altogether.