Vibe
Wildwood follows Prue McKeel, a headstrong Portland teenager whose baby brother is carried away by a murder of crows into the Impassable Wilderness, a forbidden forest just beyond the familiar city. Prue enters the hidden realm to rescue him and is joined by her awkward but loyal classmate Curtis Mehlberg. What begins as a rescue mission opens onto a much larger conflict involving talking animals, bandits, rival powers and a forest whose political and magical balance is under threat. Directed by Travis Knight from Chris Butler’s screenplay and based on the novel by Colin Meloy with illustrations by Carson Ellis, the film is positioned as LAIKA’s largest fantasy world yet. As of this catalog entry, Wildwood has not been released, so its final critical reputation and place within the studio’s filmography cannot be judged. What can already be seen is the scale of the return: after seven years without a new LAIKA feature, the studio is reintroducing its handcrafted stop-motion approach through a Pacific Northwest fantasy rooted directly in the landscape of its home region.
Watch for
- The Pacific Northwest environment, especially how forests, moss, weather and Portland-adjacent geography are translated into a handcrafted fantasy world.
- The scale contrast between human characters and the animal societies, armies and monumental natural spaces glimpsed in the film’s promotional material.
- How LAIKA balances visible puppet craft with digital extensions in a production the studio has described as its biggest world to date.
- Prue and Curtis as an outsider partnership: the rescue story is also structured around two young people learning how to move through a world whose rules they do not understand.
Production notes
Wildwood is LAIKA’s sixth feature film and its first new feature since Missing Link in 2019. Travis Knight directs and produces alongside Sam Wilson, with a screenplay by Chris Butler adapting the first Wildwood novel by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis. LAIKA has described the project as the biggest world it has ever built, and the production has been in development for many years. The announced voice ensemble includes Carey Mulligan, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Richard E. Grant, Awkwafina, Amandla Stenberg, Tom Waits, Charlie Day, Angela Bassett and Mahershala Ali among a large cast. The release also represents a new distribution phase for the independent studio: Fathom Entertainment is handling the wide U.S. theatrical release, while FilmNation Entertainment represents international sales. The film opens nationwide on October 23, 2026. Because this archive is being completed before release, production notes focus only on confirmed pre-release information rather than reviews, box-office results or post-release claims.
Trivia
- Wildwood is LAIKA’s sixth feature film and the studio’s first new feature release since Missing Link in 2019.
- The film is based on the Wildwood novel written by Colin Meloy and illustrated by Carson Ellis.
- Travis Knight directs, while Chris Butler—director of ParaNorman and Missing Link and co-writer of Kubo—wrote the screenplay.
- Fathom Entertainment will distribute the film widely in the United States, with FilmNation Entertainment handling international sales.
- Wildwood is scheduled to open in U.S. theaters on October 23, 2026.
Legacy
Wildwood does not yet have a legacy in the usual sense because, as of August 31, 2026, it has not been released. Its importance to the LAIKA story is instead prospective and already substantial. The film ends a seven-year gap between new LAIKA features and arrives after Coraline and ParaNorman theatrical re-releases demonstrated renewed audience interest in the studio’s work. It also begins a new distribution model, with LAIKA preserving its independence while working with Fathom Entertainment and FilmNation rather than returning to the exact release arrangement used for earlier features. Creatively, the project reconnects the studio to dark child-centered fantasy while expanding the physical world outward into a vast Pacific Northwest wilderness. Travis Knight has characterized it as the biggest world LAIKA has built and one of the studio’s most personal projects. Whether Wildwood becomes a commercial revival, an artistic turning point or something else entirely must wait until audiences see the finished film. For now, it belongs in the catalog as a living entry: the next chapter rather than a completed historical verdict.