Focus Features unveiled 30 minutes of Henry Selick’s “Coraline” today in Beverly Hills in two separate press events, and the material was as stunning as you would expect.
Based on Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel of the same name, “Coraline” is Selick’s first fully stop-motion feature effort since “The Nightmare before Christmas” 14 years ago. All of the puppets are hand-crafted, many of them on display during the reception that followed the footage, including this miniature set, featured in one of the scenes revealed today (forgive the crude iPhone shot — I wasn’t expecting such goodies):
Based on these fleeting moments, I’d say the film will be a creative dazzler. The 3-D really pops without drawing attention to itself, and that’s a breath of fresh air after “Beowulf” failed to capitalize on the by now decades old technology in a similar fashion last year. (How many “look, it’s in 3-D!!” moments did we really need in that thing anyway?).
What’s more, the film seems to be carrying Gaiman’s eerie tale across properly, without a lot of fuss and with an eye toward preserving the author’s atmospheric intentions.
Selick spoke brielfy beforehand and mingled afterward, but I had to leave before getting any face time with him myself. The film is set to bow in February and will be part of an interesting duo of animated endeavors for Focus next year (along with “9”). Can’t wait to see the rest.
Comments
5 responses to “Revealing ‘Coraline’”
[…] is the original post: Revealing ‘Coraline’ Bookmark to: Hide Sites « Top 10: Microsoft’s bug, Greenspan speaks, Android […]
I could be wrong, but I’m ALMOST 100% “Coraline” was a novel, not a graphic novel… sure, that’s nitpicky, but I’m a huge Neil Gaiman fan so I’m kinda dick-ish about it, sorry!
Andre’s right — “Coraline” was a novel, not a graphic novel.
And it’s not Selick’s first stop-motion feature since “Nightmare.” He did “James and the Giant Peach,” remember?
Of course you’re right, Andre. Call it a habit, what with Gaiman’s name in the mix.
Amended.
As for the stop-motion comment, “James” was a mixture of live action and stop motion. But “Coraline” will be his first “fully” stop motion film since “Nightmare.”
Looks like next year’s Best Animated Feature race may actually be a tight competition for once:
“Ponyo on a Cliff”, “Coraline”, “9”, not to mention two Pixar films (“Cars 2” and “Up”).