Laika Studios just dropped a behind-the-scenes featurette for Wildwood, and it is worth your time. The studio building out an elaborate stop-motion fantasy world piece by piece is exactly the kind of thing you want to see before the film hits theaters.
Director Travis Knight is at the helm. If you loved Kubo and the Two Strings, this has the same DNA. Old-school stop-motion, handcrafted sets, painstaking figurine work slowly coming to life. The featurette makes that process visible, and it works as marketing because who would not be curious about how these worlds get built?
Wildwood adapts the 2011 novel by Colin Meloy, frontman of The Decemberists, and his wife, illustrator Carson Ellis. The couple lives in Portland, Oregon, right by Forest Park. In the book, they turn that local hiking spot into a magical hidden world of talking animals and lurking threats. Twelve-year-old Prue McKee discovers the forest when a murder of crows carries off her baby brother. Her classmate Curtis follows, and both enter the Wilderness.
The voice cast is stacked. Peyton Elizabeth Lee voices Prue. Jacob Tremblay is Curtis. Carey Mulligan plays Alexandra. Angela Bassett voices a giant golden eagle. The roster also includes Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Tom Waits, and Richard E. Grant in undisclosed roles.
An extended teaser released in May has nearly 90 million views. A full trailer should be coming soon. Wildwood arrives in theaters on October 23, 2026.
