Coraline’s director made a new movie — but Jordan Peele worried Get Out would kill it
Given how long it takes to make a stop-motion movie — and how long it takes to persuade a studio to produce one — it’s no surprise that stop-motion specialist Henry Selick disappears for years at a time between projects. The director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monkeybone, and James and the Giant Peach has spent the years since his 2009 Neil Gaiman adaptation Coraline on a variety of stop-motion projects that have been shelved or sidelined. But Netflix announced Tuesday that his latest long-gestating project, the stop-motion animated movie Wendell & Wild, will debut on the streaming service on Oct. 28.
Wendell & Wild stars the voices of longtime comedy partners Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as Wendell and Wild, a pair of low-level demon brothers who live and work in a theme park-styled hell that exists entirely on the belly of a much larger demon (voiced by Ving Rhames). Wendell and Wild dream of starting their own, better theme park in the mortal world. So they team up with 13-year-old Kat (Lyric Ross), a troubled orphan with the ability to summon demons.
During a visit to the Wendell & Wild set in April, Polygon learned that the idea for the movie came to Selick through his children. “Wendell & Wild started out as a short story I did many, many years ago, inspired by my sons, who are now grown,” he says. “When they were little, I did a picture of them as demons. They were somewhat demonic at times. And I wrote a story about it and shared it with some people, but then I put it away.”
Years later, Selick shares, he became a fan of the sketch-comedy series Key & Peele. “I was so impressed by their work,” he says. “I just said, What the hell, I’ll reach out. They probably don’t know who I am. But I wanted to
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