It's every misunderstood teen's dream pairing: Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, hooked up with scriptwriter/author Neil Gaiman (Beowulf, American Gods) to bring Gaiman's award-winning novel Coraline to the big screen.
Now IGN managed to score some early featurettes promoting the flick, which you can access by clicking here and here.
Coraline Featurettes
For those of you who haven't read the book (and why not?), Coraline follows the titular girl (Dakota Fanning) who discovers a portal to another world.
"Initially, everything seems much more interesting, and a much more cool place," says writer Gaiman, who also has the acclaimed Sandman series of graphic novels to his credit.
In this other world, Coraline discovers duplicates of her Mother (Teri Hatcher) and Father (John Hodgman), except that they have giant black buttons over their eyes, and they're just a little too happy to see her.
"(She's) the perfect mom that everyone would ever want," says Teri Hatcher about her second character. "The perfect cook, and has has the perfect answer to any question."
Given that it's Selick and Gaiman on the case, you can imagine things don't turn out to be cupcakes and roses in this new world, and Coraline has to find a way to escape her new parents.
Not surprisingly, the cast and crew are pretty buzzed about this flick (they have to be; they want people to see this movie after all), but there is an air of legitimacy to their excitement.
"The combination of Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman seems very potent," observes Ian McShane (Kung Fu Panda), who voices the role of Mr. Bobinski.
"I am a huge, super-geek Neil Gaiman fan," says Hodgman (best known for the Mac vs. PC series of commercials). "When I learned that Henry Selick was directing it, there was no way that I could say no."
Will Coraline Be Any Good?
It's worth noting the disclaimer preceding these shorts: "As this movie is still in production, this Coraline featurette contains some shots that are not yet final."
That said, this movie looks pretty freakin' awesome; fans of The Nightmare Before Christmas (guilty!) should go on alert waiting for this flick. Selick obviously knows how to deliver that creepy Gothic vibe that served Nightmare so well, and Gaiman's story is top-notch. Given that all the elements are in place, it's hard to imagine how Laika Entertainment could screw this one up.
Coraline hits theatres on February 6, 2009.
Fun Fact: Coraline won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for Best Novella in 2003.
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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