Wendell & Wild Teaser: A New Stop-Motion Animation Movie From Henry Selick And Jordan Peele
Does the idea of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Coraline" director Henry Selick joining forces with Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key sound exciting to you? If so, you're in luck! The three have a stop-motion animated horror-comedy titled "Wendell & Wild" coming to Netflix in 2022 — something the streamer is doing its part to remind everyone by dropping a second teaser online.
"Wendell & Wild" originated with a story written by Selick before Peele boarded the project as both a voice actor and co-writer. (He's also producing with Selick and "The Maze Runner" veteran Ellen Goldsmith-Vein.) The movie features real-life buds Key and Peele as the eponymous duo, a pair of scheming demonic brothers who flee the Underworld only to find themselves in a town where they must battle the demon-dusting teenager Kat. Like the movie's first teaser, this new promo doesn't shed light on the plot so much as highlight what /Film's Max Evry aptly described as the film's eye-catching "near-cubist aesthetic." Take a look, below.
Wendell & Wild Teaser #2
If you're wondering why it's taken Selick more than 10 years to direct another movie after Laika's critically acclaimed "Coraline" (a stop-motion animated film based on Neil Gaiman's award winning dark fantasy novella), it's not because he's been sitting idle. First, he stepped away from Laika to make a stop-motion animated dark fantasy movie titled "Shademaker" (and, later, "The Shadow King") for Disney and Pixar, only for the Mouse House to can the project in 2012 after spending a reported $50 million on its development. He was later tapped to adapt another Gaiman novel, "The Graveyard Book," as well as live-action movie based on the first entry in Adam Gidwitz's Grimm novel trilogy, "A Tale Dark and Grimm," prior to getting "Wendell & Wild" off the ground in 2015.
Selick's track record as a director is, admittedly, somewhat hit-and-miss. As successful as "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Coraline" were on all fronts, his stop-motion "James and the Giant Peach" film adaptation flopped at the box office in spite of strong reviews, while his hybrid live-action/stop-motion dark fantasy comedy "Monkeybone" was an even costlier bomb that most agreed couldn't get its fascinating, bizarre ideas to work together as a story. All that being said, he's an imaginative filmmaker with a unique vision; add Key and Peele as key creatives to the mix, and you've got the potential for something special with "Wendell & Wild."
"Wendell & Wild" will begin streaming on Netflix in 2022.