"It doesn't get much better - or more ambitious - than Laika Studios. The Oregon-based animation house has spent the last 20 years crafting breathtaking, painstakingly built stop-motion worlds, offering some much-needed disruption to the increasing sameness that studios like Disney and DreamWorks have fallen prey to. 2025 has been a big year for Laika: it hit a major milestone in its 20th anniversary, and soon, it'll unveil what co-founder Travis Knight calls the studio's most ambitious film yet."
"Five years after The Missing Link, Laika is back with a new adventure set in its own backyard of Portland: Wildwood. The film, based on Colin Meloy's novel of the same name, follows the adventures of the 13-year-old Prue as she journeys into a fantastical realm in her own backyard. After her baby brother is abducted by a murder of crows, Prue teams up with a majestic eagle companion known as the General (voiced by Angela Bassett) to rescue him."
"Wildwood transforms the forests of Oregon into a fantastical, dangerous realm, with supernatural threats like ruthless bandits and shrewd talking animals lurking around every corner. It's clear what connective tissue it shares with films like Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, but it also goes further than those projects in its efforts to render the character of the General."
Laika Studios reached its 20th anniversary in 2025 and prepared to release Wildwood, described as the studio's most ambitious film. The stop-motion feature adapts Colin Meloy's novel and centers on 13-year-old Prue, who enters a fantastical Portland forest to rescue her baby brother after a murder of crows abducts him. Prue allies with the General, a majestic eagle voiced by Angela Bassett. Production required a decade of work, including meticulous motion tests and the construction of multiple authentic avian models to capture the General's movements and accommodate varied on-screen uses.
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