When news such as a hybrid CG-animated/live-action Sonic the Hedgehog feature film is coming from Hollywood, one may feel a little dour about the world of animation. Thankfully, we have something to lift one’s spirits, as, after a handful of inventive teasers, Laika Animation have delivered the first two impressive full-length trailers for their upcoming feature, The Boxtrolls.
Directed by Anthony Stacchi (Open Season) and Graham Annable (who worked on the story for both ParaNorman and Coraline), The Boxtrolls is based on Alan Snow’s novel Here Be Monsters and follows a group of sewer-dwelling oddballs, who are perceived as dangerous, but in fact have raised a orphan boy.
“All we really look for is great, emotional human stories and also stories that we think will look great in stop-motion animation, and this sort of steampunk, Victorian, Monty Python world seemed perfect,” Stacci recently told Yahoo. “And then you can’t ask for better characters to animate in stop-motion than guys who live in magical boxes that they pop in and out of the top of.”
These new trailers sell an enticing, incredibly detailed animation, so check out both below for the film featuring Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Elle Fanning, Jared Harris, Toni Collette, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan and Simon Pegg.
Synopsis:
The new 3D animated feature from Laika Studios tells the tale of the Boxtrolls, monsters who live underneath the charming streets of Cheesebridge, who crawl out of the sewers at night to steal what the townspeople hold most dear: their children and their cheeses. At least, that’s the legend the townspeople have always believed. In truth, the Boxtrolls are a community of lovable oddballs who are raising as one of their own an abandoned and orphaned human boy named Eggs. When the Boxtrolls are targeted by a villainous exterminator who is bent on eradicating them, Eggs must venture aboveground to save them, where he teams with an adventurous young girl to save not only the Boxtrolls but the soul of Cheesebridge.
The Boxtrolls opens on September 26th, 2014.