Fall Movie Preview: In an AI world, Laika makes handmade wonders — and 'Wildwood'

NEW YORK (AP) — Travis Knight, the chief executive of the stop-motion animation studio Laika, wasn’t prepared for the response to the teaser for his new film, “Wildwood.” Almost immediately, it went viral. The early trailer rapidly gained more than 90 million views on YouTube, galvanized by people awed by the apparent scale and emotional depth of Laika’s most ambitious film yet. Laika: Hold my meticulously handcrafted stop motion beer.” “People that I worked with — hardened industry folks with wizened black husks of hearts — were sending me text messages: ‘Jesus Christ, your trailer just made me cry,’” Knight says, chuckling.

Why did Knight’s strange, indie stop-motion animated movie resonate so strongly? “The making of the art leaves fingerprints on the art,” Knight surmises. “And I think people feel that.” There’s no shortage of people proclaiming that AI is the future.

There are significantly fewer proselytizing about stop-motion animation’s assured destiny. But Laika, the Portland, Oregon-based studio, has for two decades tried to keep an old movie art form alive while mixing in more modern, computer-generated advances. (“We’re not Amish,” promises Knight.) The studio’s first release in 2009, Henry Selick’s “Coraline,” is still its most beloved.

But Laika’s commitment to handcrafted filmmaking and darkly gothic tales has won a loyal following over the years, even though its last release was the 2019 flop “Missing Link.” Yet “Wildwood” might always have been what Laika was building toward. The film, which opens in theaters Oct. 23, is based on Colin Meloy’s 2011 fantasy novel, illustrated by Carson Ellis.

Set in Portland, it’s about a teenage girl named Prue McKee (voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee) whose infant brother is kidnapped by a flock of crows and taken into an enchanted forest. The voice cast includes Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Jake Johnson and Jacob Tremblay. The film, heavy with grief and radiant with adventure, isn’t just in Laika’s tonal sweet spot.

“It’s everything I love in one film,” Knight said in a recent exclusive interview. “I think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done at Laika.” Stop-motion animation as ‘a quiet act of rebellion’ It was also the biggest challenge. Knight, the son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight (who’s chairman of Laika and has helped bankroll it), acquired…