At a midweek preview at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Laika CEO Travis Knight walked through how long and how hard this film was to get on screen. Sixteen years after he started and $100 million later, Wildwood is finally rolling into cinemas this weekend.
The production's showpiece is a 12-minute battle that Laika says is its biggest swing so far. It crams in roughly 3,000 hand built figures across 5 separate environments and took more than 400 individual shots. The early reception is strong too. The trailer on Laika's YouTube channel has attracted close to 90 million views, and critics on Rotten Tomatoes have it at a perfect 100%.
Laika operates a short drive west of Nike's global headquarters near Portland, Oregon, and has about 400 staffers in animation and support roles. The company is financed by Phil Knight, the billionaire co founder of Nike and Laika's chairman.
Travis Knight, 53, started as an animator at Will Vinton Studios in Hillsboro, Oregon. His father bought the struggling shop in 2003 and renamed it two years later. Knight took over as CEO in 2009.
Laika's lineup includes Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link. Coraline only crossed into the black after multiple rereleases following its 2009 debut. All but one of Laika's prior five films underperformed in theaters, yet every one earned an Oscar nomination for best animated feature.
Wildwood is a dark fantasy about teenagers Prue and Curtis who venture into an enchanted forest just outside Portland. The movie's North American opening is expected to be modest. Analysts are eyeing about $10 million for the debut from the US and Canada.
Rentrak analyst Paul Dergarabedian pegs the launch between $6 million and $10 million, highlighting more robust presales as a hopeful sign. "Laika has always taken a different approach to animation, and it'll be interesting to see how audiences respond to this one," he said. "I think there's potential for the film to build on word of mouth well beyond opening weekend."
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On a recent industry podcast, Jason Brenek - CEO of Fathom Entertainment and distributor of Wildwood - said that Knight and Laika belong to a rising set of filmmakers who are "building their own cult of personality" by keeping marketing and audience engagement in house rather than relying on larger studios.
Laika's handcrafted methods have been championed by cinephiles wary of artificial intelligence in animation, a stance Knight underscored this week.
At a panel at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, he said, "a pencil is a tool, a paintbrush is a tool, a 3D printer is a tool, a digital capture system is a tool. AI is not a tool. AI can go f - - itself." At the American Film Institute festival, he opened with a wry introduction: "I am Travis Knight and I make stop motion movies," adding a riff about the "obsessive behavior" and "financial ruin" that drew laughs.
And when the Los Angeles premiere was doused by rain, he noted, "there's something oddly poetic" about the downpour after so many years of work.
Why does that matter? If Wildwood breaks through commercially, it validates Knight's slow build of a studio that runs against Hollywood's normal math. If it falters, the takeaway is harsh for anyone trying similar projects without backing from one of the wealthiest families. For your portfolio, watch whether opening weekend in the US and Canada extends into steady word of mouth, and whether critical acclaim converts into cash flow.
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