This past weekend, indie animation house Laika — the team behind “Coraline,” “ParaNorman,” and “The Boxtrolls” — released their latest effort, “Kubo And The Two Strings.” And while critically adored, the picture didn’t quite resonate the same way with audiences, with the film opening to very soft numbers. Box office aside, Laika has pursued a path of telling wholly original stories each time out; these pictures aren’t branded entertainment, and don’t belong to any cinematic universe. And the studio aims to keep it that way.
Speaking with Cartoon Brew, Laika CEO and President Travis Knight revealed they’re already at work on their next movie (one which he says will be their first without a young protagonist), and explained why you’re likely never to see “Coraline 2.”
“I take a firm stand against sequels. My industry brethren are a little shocked at how firmly I’m committed to not doing sequels. Of course there are great sequels. ‘Godfather II,’ ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’ But I think if you look at where our industry is going, it’s dominated by franchises and brands, re-dos, re-makes, sequels and prequels, where all these old presents are re-wrapped and offered up as new gifts. The pendulum has gone so far in that one direction,” he explained. “We used to go to movies to see stories about ourselves. It would transport us to new worlds and we’d see aspects of ourselves reflected back. As TV has become more like movies, movies have become more like TV. It’s gone the other way. There are these serials, these continuing stories that are a regurgitation of the same things we’ve seen over and over again. And I have no interest in doing that.”
“You put so much of yourselves into these movies….You give and give and give to these movies. If we’re going to do that, it needs to matter; it has to mean something. I don’t want to tell the same stories over and over again,” he continued. “The way we approach our stories is we imagine each film as if it’s the most meaningful experience of our protagonist’s life. If that’s your point of view, your sequel is automatically either going to be (A) a diminishment of that – is it the second most important experience of your protagonist’s life? Or, (B) you’ve got to crank up the volume so much, everything’s sensory overload, and becomes comical how much you have to ratchet it up to justify its existence. I’m not interested in that. I don’t want to do that. I want to tell new and original stories.”
Knight’s thoughts on sequels are admirable and certainly the kind of thing that any creative mind, particularly in a Hollywood environment that has put IP as priority lately, would love to hear. However, as Knight learned this weekend with ‘Kubo,’ just because you have something original doesn’t mean moviegoers are going to show up. And we’ll see how long Laika can sustain their business model on this approach. However, with Laika currently releasing a film once every two years — and aiming for one film each year — it does keep their efforts relatively low risk financially. Either way, it’s heartening to hear a studio chief give a very well reasoned argument against chasing sequels. And let’s hope Laika continues with that mandate for a long time to come.