Wildwood Trailer Unveils A Magical Stop Motion Adventure From Laika

Laika is taking audiences deep into an enchanting and mysterious forest with Wildwood, its upcoming stop motion animated adventure directed by Travis Knight. The studio has unveiled the main official trailer for the film, offering a spectacular glimpse at a richly imagined world filled with magic, strange creatures, powerful forces and a dangerous quest at its centre.

Based on Colin Meloy's illustrated Wildwood book series, the film follows Prue McKeel, voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, whose ordinary life in Portland, Oregon is turned upside down when her baby brother Mac is kidnapped by a murder of crows. What begins as a desperate attempt to bring him home soon takes Prue and her friend Curtis into the mysterious world of Wildwood.

The trailer introduces Wildwood as a place that feels both beautiful and threatening. Hidden beyond the familiar world is a vast enchanted forest where powerful creatures rule the skies, alliances are constantly shifting and magic appears to be woven into the landscape itself. At the heart of this extraordinary world stands the Council Tree, a spectacular creation that becomes an important meeting place for the inhabitants of the Woods.

Prue's journey is not simply about rescuing her little brother. As she ventures deeper into Wildwood, she is forced to confront a world with its own rules, dangers and mysteries. The appearance of a mysterious woman and the powerful eagle that commands the skies add further questions to a story that appears to balance childhood wonder with genuine peril.

One of the biggest attractions of Wildwood is its extraordinary voice cast. Peyton Elizabeth Lee leads the film alongside Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Awkwafina, Jemaine Clement, Charlie Day, Jake Johnson, Amandla Stenberg, Tom Waits, Richard E Grant and Mahershala Ali, who voices Brenden, the Bandit King of Wildwood.

The film reunites Laika with director Travis Knight, whose previous work with the studio includes Kubo and the Two Strings. Knight is known for combining ambitious visual storytelling with the painstaking craft of stop motion animation, and Wildwood appears to push that approach into an enormous fantasy world. The scale of the production is particularly impressive. According to the filmmakers, Laika's craftspeople have spent more than a decade shaping the world of Wildwood, with meticulous practical craftsmanship and innovative animation used to create its characters and environments. The Council Tree, in particular, has been developed as much more than a simple set, becoming a living centrepiece for the fictional forest.

That commitment to practical animation gives Wildwood a distinctive visual identity at a time when computer-generated animation dominates the mainstream. Every movement, texture and miniature environment has the potential to carry the handmade quality that has become one of Laika's defining trademarks. Chris Butler has written the screenplay, adapting Meloy's source material and Carson Ellis' illustrations for the big screen. The story's combination of family, friendship, fantasy and danger gives Wildwood the potential to appeal to younger audiences while offering enough darker and more intricate material for adults.

The trailer also makes it clear that this is not going to be a lightweight woodland adventure. Between the kidnapping of Mac, the mysterious forces controlling Wildwood and Prue's increasingly dangerous journey, the film appears to have plenty of emotional and dramatic weight beneath its fantastical surface. At its heart, however, Wildwood remains a story about a girl willing to enter an unknown world to save her family. Prue's determination to find her brother gives the elaborate fantasy setting an emotional anchor, while her friendship with Curtis provides another important part of the journey.

Wildwood is scheduled to arrive in theatres on October 23, 2026. With Laika's trademark stop motion craftsmanship, Travis Knight behind the camera and a remarkable voice cast bringing the characters to life, the film is shaping up to be one of the year's most visually ambitious animated adventures.

And if the new trailer is anything to go by, Wildwood is exactly the kind of forest audiences will want to get lost in — even if getting out might be considerably harder than getting in.