Focus Features Partners With Laika for Three More Films

Posted on Monday, October 6th, 2014 by Russ Fischer

Released just over a week ago, The Boxtrolls had the best-ever opening for Laika, and going into this weekend had a global take sitting at $38m. Those are good numbers, and all the more remarkable because The Boxtrolls isn’t a smooth and sanitized picture. Rather it is idiosyncratic and unusual, especially for today’s animation landscape. Since Laika’s films aren’t cheap (this one is reportedly budgeted at around $60m) and take considerable time to create, it’s good to know that the company has a partner going forward.

Focus Features and Universal have partnered with Laika in the past to release the studio’s films domestically and abroad. And the companies have announced that they’ve signed a new three-film pact. That means that we’ll see another trio of Laika films with the muscle of Focus and Universal behind them. More info follows. Read More »

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‘Paranorman’ and ‘Coraline’ Studio Laika Announces a 2014 Release

Posted on Monday, October 8th, 2012 by Russ Fischer

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. Read More »

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‘Coraline’ Animation Company Laika Adapting Youth-Lit Novel ‘Wildwood’

Posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2011 by Russ Fischer

Colin Meloy, singer for The Decemberists, and his wife Carson Ellis just published a young-adult illustrated fantasy novel called Wildwood. The book is set in an alternate version of Portland, OR. and is the first of a would-be trilogye that follows “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.”

Now the novel has been optioned by Laika, the animation company that was responsible for Coraline and has the 3d stop-motion movie ParaNorman in production for release next year. Read More »

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