Very few styles of film making are more impressive and more grueling than the art of stop-motion. The meticulous and painstaking work requires the patience of ten saints, and not one person had this gift mixture of virtues more so than Henry Selick. Selick is best known for his directorial debut with the Tim Burton produced Halloween (and sometimes Christmas) classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. He also did James and the Giant Peach, and most recently an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book, Coraline.
Selick recently spoke with HitFix (head there to read a lot more with the director) about what he has coming up next, and surprisingly, three projects were revealed. As impressive as stop-motion movies are, we live in a world where animated movies are mostly made using computer technologies, and these movies make insane amounts of money; so why put the money and the effort into something as tedious as stop-motion when it can be so much easier? Well, sillies — because there is a certain charm that comes from stop-motion that is completely unique and impossible to replicate.
The projects that Selick has set up have the most minimal of details so far, but we do know a little. First and most exciting: there is a movie being developed that would see him adapting another Gaiman title. After that, Selick has a story that he has been working on for ten years all set to go. You know it’s going to be wonderful if the man has a decade invested. Last up is an original story that he found and acquired.
Obviously the big news there is that another collaboration with Neil Gaiman seems to be on the way. And the only Gaiman book that really makes any sense is his last work and the one most like his kid-friendly Coraline, The Graveyard Book, which came out in 2008. This is not confirmed in any way, but if you look at Selick’s style, and how many books Gaiman has that fit said style, could it really be anything else?
We shall wait quietly and patiently until this is confirmed or denied, but consider us Christmas morning giddy about the potential!
The Wolves In The Walls, another excellent Neil Gaiman childrens book would have merit also. Even the existing art style in the book looks like almost like claymation.
Probably unlikely since Neil has already announced that Neil Jordan has signed on to write and direct a film adaptation of The Graveyard Book.
I would like to see a stop motion of A Christmas Carol. I know, they’ve done the story with movie adaptions to DEATH, but at least we can get a different approach. And leave the 3D out of it, unless we’re realsing porn in 3D-STOP already!