New Wildwood Trailer Reveals LAIKA’s Handcrafted Fantasy Adventure

LAIKA has released a new full trailer for Wildwood, offering the clearest look yet at the stop-motion studio’s sprawling fantasy adventure ahead of its theatrical release this fall.

The film follows Prue McKeel, a teenager who enters a mysterious forest outside Portland, Oregon, after a group of crows takes her baby brother. What begins as a rescue mission quickly expands into a conflict involving talking animals, rival factions, bandits and powerful figures fighting over the future of the hidden world.

Wildwood opens in U.S. theatres on October 23, 2026, with Fathom Entertainment handling domestic distribution and FilmNation Entertainment representing the movie internationally.

Visit the official Wildwood movie site.

The New Trailer Goes Much Deeper Into Wildwood

LAIKA’s first teaser focused heavily on atmosphere and the scale of the handcrafted world. The latest trailer reveals considerably more of Prue’s journey and the conflict waiting for her inside the Impassable Wilderness.

Prue, voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, sets off after her younger brother is abducted. She is joined by her classmate Curtis Mehlberg, voiced by Jacob Tremblay, as the pair cross from recognisable Portland into a forest that operates according to its own rules.

The new footage shows armies, talking animals, elaborate cities, dangerous creatures, and vast forests, while keeping the emotional centre of the story focused on Prue’s attempt to bring her brother home.

LAIKA describes the movie as a darkly magical adventure shaped by love, power and the willingness to confront the unknown.

Wildwood Comes From the Director of Kubo and the Two Strings

Wildwood is directed by Travis Knight, LAIKA’s president and CEO, whose previous directing credits include Kubo and the Two Strings.

Chris Butler wrote the screenplay. Butler previously worked on ParaNorman and Kubo and the Two Strings and has been closely associated with LAIKA’s distinctive mixture of fantasy, darker themes and handcrafted animation.

Knight is producing the film alongside Sam Wilson.

The movie is based on the 2011 novel Wildwood by Colin Meloy, with illustrations by Carson Ellis. The book became the first instalment in the Wildwood Chronicles and is closely associated with Portland and the forests surrounding the city.

The film keeps that Pacific Northwest setting rather than moving the story to a fictional modern city.

LAIKA’s official synopsis places the Impassable Wilderness just beyond Portland, where Prue encounters a hidden society after crossing into territory she had been warned not to enter.

LAIKA Is Building Its Biggest Stop-Motion World Yet

The visual scale may be the most striking part of the trailer.

Stop-motion filmmaking requires physical puppets to be adjusted frame by frame, with sets, costumes and miniature props built to support the animation. LAIKA has combined those traditional techniques with technologies such as rapid prototyping and 3D printing across its previous films.

For Wildwood, the studio is applying that process to a much larger fantasy environment.

Fathom describes the film as a “handcrafted epic fantasy” and says LAIKA considers it its most ambitious and broadly accessible movie to date.

Knight has separately described Wildwood as the biggest world LAIKA has built. The studio has emphasised the physical, artist-led production process throughout the film’s marketing, presenting handcrafted animation as a central part of the movie’s identity.

That approach is especially visible in the new footage. Forests are packed with individually crafted details, characters retain the tactile appearance of stop-motion puppets, and even large action sequences maintain the physical quality that distinguishes LAIKA’s movies from conventional computer animation.

The Voice Cast Is Huge

LAIKA has assembled one of its largest voice casts for the project.

Peyton Elizabeth Lee voices Prue, while Jacob Tremblay plays Curtis.

The supporting cast includes:

• Carey Mulligan

• Richard E. Grant

• Awkwafina

• Amandla Stenberg

• Tom Waits

• Charlie Day

• Blythe Danner

• Maya Erskine

• Jake Johnson

• Tantoo Cardinal

• Rob Delaney

• Jemaine Clement

• Marc Evan Jackson

• Len Cariou

• Ólafur Darri Ólafsson

• Angela Bassett

• Mahershala Ali

Fathom Entertainment confirmed the ensemble when LAIKA released its first trailer in May.

Mahershala Ali voices Brendan, an important figure within the forest’s bandit faction, while the trailer introduces several of the competing groups that Prue and Curtis encounter.

This Is LAIKA’s First Feature Since Missing Link

Wildwood is LAIKA’s sixth feature film and its first theatrical feature since Missing Link arrived in 2019.

The studio began its feature-film run with Coraline in 2009, followed by ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link.

Every one of those five films received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. At the same time, Kubo and the Two Strings also earned an Oscar nomination for visual effects and won the BAFTA Award for animated film.

That seven-year gap between new LAIKA features makes Wildwood especially important to the studio.

It is also arriving at a time when much of mainstream animation is produced digitally. LAIKA is explicitly positioning the physical nature of stop-motion as one of the film’s defining attractions.

LAIKA Is Taking a Different Distribution Route

Wildwood also marks a notable change in how LAIKA is bringing a new movie to theatres.

Fathom Entertainment will distribute the movie across the United States, while FilmNation Entertainment is handling international sales.

The partnership was announced in January, when LAIKA also confirmed the October 23 release date.

Fathom is best known to many moviegoers for special theatrical events and rereleases, including previous engagements involving Coraline and ParaNorman. With Wildwood, it is handling a conventional nationwide release for a major new animated feature.

See Fathom Entertainment’s official Wildwood release page

Portland Is More Than a Background

The connection to Portland is particularly appropriate for LAIKA.

The studio itself is based near Portland, and the original Wildwood novel draws heavily from the geography and atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest.

The movie begins in a recognisable version of the city before moving into the imaginary Impassable Wilderness.

That gives the story an unusual visual contrast. Familiar bridges, neighbourhoods, and cityscapes sit beside a densely constructed fantasy realm populated by animals, soldiers, and strange political factions.

Rather than beginning in an entirely fictional world, Wildwood treats the fantastic as something hidden immediately beyond ordinary life.

Wildwood Arrives in October

Wildwood opens in theatres across the United States on October 23, 2026. Fathom’s official release calendar continues to list the film for that date.

The film has not yet been rated, according to its official website.

The latest trailer provides a much broader picture of what LAIKA has spent years building: a rescue story set against political conflict, large-scale action, and an unusually detailed stop-motion world.

For a studio whose reputation has been built on making every frame feel physically crafted, Wildwood appears designed to push that approach to a scale LAIKA has not attempted before.