The rerelease of Coraline was an unexpected hit for Laika, adding in an extra $33 million to its box office revenue in the three weeks it was available. Why not do it again? The Portland studio announced today it’s bringing back their second full-length stop-motion spookfest, ParaNorman, for one week in theaters. Just like Coraline, the release will be presented in 3D.
Norman Babcock is a teenage boy from the town of Blithe Hollow, Massachsetts. Norman has the ability to communicate with the dead, but almost no one believes he can. And unfortunately, it happens to be the 300th anniversary of the month the townspeople executed a witch, so if he can’t find a way to remove the curse she cast, all his friends will be in danger.
ParaNorman stars the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Hill, Alex Borstein and John Goodman. It was written and directed by Chris Butler, who would later direct Laika’s Missing Link, and Sam Fell (Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget) served as co-writer.
But that’s not all! This rerelease will contain some fresh content: a new short called ParaNorman: The Thrifting, starring the return of Anna Kendrick as Norman’s older sister, Courtney Babcock, as well as Stranger Things‘ Finn Wolfhard in an undisclosed role. The Thrifting is directed by Laika’s lead character designer Thibault LeClercq and written by Butler.
One other thing: the short is CG, not stop-motion, because it was produced at Passion Pictures, a French animation studio. If we had to guess, stop-motion takes a long time and there was probably no chance of getting it done by deadline the traditional way. Won’t happen again — Laika’s next feature is all stop-motion.
“ParaNorman was a breakthrough film for LAIKA — emotionally rich, visually daring, and proudly weird in all the right ways,” said LAIKA’s Chief Marketing & Operations Officer David Burke. “Bringing it back to theaters in stunning remastered 3D, paired with a brand-new short film, is an invitation for audiences to rediscover the heart and humor of Norman’s world — or experience it for the first time. Today, horror has become a shared family ritual, and ParaNorman sits right at the intersection of spooky and meaningful. It’s the perfect ‘starter horror’ —a gateway into genre storytelling that’s as thoughtful as it is thrilling.”
ParaNorman will return to US theaters October 25 (international markets get it a day earlier) and will run through Halloween.
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