LAIKA's stop-motion adaptation of Wildwood, directed by Travis Knight with Carey Mulligan and Mahershala Ali in the voice cast, had its world premiere at the Royal Festival Hall.
LAIKA, the stop-motion studio behind Coraline, premiered Wildwood as an afternoon Gala at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank on Sunday 11 October 2026. Carey Mulligan and Mahershala Ali are in its voice cast.
Its director, Travis Knight, was born in Hillsboro, Oregon, in 1973, the son of the Nike co-founder Phil Knight. He animated at LAIKA, the Portland studio he now runs as chief executive.
Kubo and the Two Strings, his debut as director in 2016, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. Bumblebee, his first live-action film, followed in 2018.
Wildwood adapts the first of Colin Meloy’s Wildwood Chronicles, published in 2011 with illustrations by Carson Ellis. When crows carry off her baby brother, a girl named Prue follows them into a hidden forest of magical beings. Chris Butler wrote the screenplay.
The Gala, in the first weekend of the seventieth London Film Festival, was the film’s first screening anywhere in the world. Black Bear distributes it in Britain.
Peyton Elizabeth Lee leads the voice cast, with Jacob Tremblay and Angela Bassett.