Animation studio reveals its next feature.
Marking their third project together, LAIKA and Focus Features, the two companies behind the current Academy Award-nominated animated feature ‘ParaNorman,’ announced today that LAIKA has begun production on ‘The Boxtrolls.’ The new movie will hit cinemas October 2014.
‘Open Season’ co-director Anthony Stacchi and ‘Coraline’ and ‘ParaNorman’ story artist Graham Annable will direct the 3D stop-motion and CG hybrid animated feature with Ben Kingsley (‘Iron Man 3’), Toni Collette (‘Mental’), Elle Fanning, Isaac Hempstead-Wright (‘Game of Thrones’), Jared Harris (‘The Quiet Ones’), Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade (‘The I.T. Crowd’), and Tracy Morgan (’30 Rock’) on board to lend their voices.
Based on Alan Snow’s bestselling fantasy adventure novel ‘Here Be Monsters,’ ‘The Boxtrolls’ is a comedic fable that unfolds in Cheesebridge, a posh Victorian-era town obsessed with wealth, class, and the stinkiest of fine cheeses. Beneath its charming cobblestone streets dwell the Boxtrolls, foul monsters who crawl out of the sewers at night and steal what the townspeople hold most dear: their children and their cheeses. At least, that’s the legend residents have always believed. In truth, the Boxtrolls are an underground cavern-dwelling community of quirky and lovable oddballs who wear recycled cardboard boxes the way turtles wear their shells. The Boxtrolls have raised an orphaned human boy, Eggs (voiced by Hempstead-Wright), since infancy as one of their dumpster-diving and mechanical junk-collecting own. When the Boxtrolls are targeted by villainous pest exterminator Archibald Snatcher (Kingsley), who is bent on eradicating them as his ticket to Cheesebridge society, the kindhearted band of tinkerers must turn to their adopted charge and adventurous rich girl Winnie (Fanning) to bridge two worlds amidst the winds of change – and cheese.
In a statement, LAIKA President & CEO Travis Knight said: “‘The Boxtrolls’ is a visually dazzling mash-up of gripping detective story, absurdist comedy, and steampunk adventure with a surprisingly wholesome heart. It’s Dickens by way of Monty Python. Tony and Graham have crafted a strange and beautiful world replete with fantastical creatures, good-for-nothing reprobates, madcap antics, and rip-roaring feats of derring-do. But at its core, like all LAIKA films, ‘The Boxtrolls’ is a moving and human story with timelessness and powerful emotional resonance. We’re thrilled to partner with Focus Features and Universal to bring this remarkable story to family audiences around the world.”