Coraline

Coraline is a 2009 American stop motion animated dark fantasy horror film written and directed by Henry Selick, based on Neil Gaiman's novella of the same name. Produced by LAIKA, as the studio's first feature film, it features the voice talents of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., and Ian McShane. The musical score was composed by Bruno Coulais. The film tells the story of its eponymous character discovering an idealized alternate universe behind a secret door in her new home, unaware that it contains something dark and sinister. Her friends, a boy named Wybie and a stray black cat, help her set things right and become closer to her parents. Just as Gaiman was finishing his novella in 2002, he met Selick and invited him to make a film adaptation, as Gaiman was a fan of Selick's other stop-motion projects, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996). When Selick thought that a direct adaptation would lead to "maybe a 47-minute movie", the screenplay had some expansions, like the introduction of Wybie, who was not present in the original novel. Selick, looking for a design away from that of most animation, discovered the work of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi and invited him to become the concept artist. His biggest influences were on the color palette, which was muted in the real world and more colorful in the Other World, similar to The Wizard of Oz (1939). To capture stereoscopy for the 3D release, the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions. Production of the stop-motion animation feature took place at a warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon (near Portland). The film was theatrically released in the United States on February 6, 2009, by Focus Features after a world premiere at the Portland International Film Festival on February 5, and received critical acclaim. The film grossed $16.85 million during its opening weekend, ranking third at the box office, and by the end of its run had grossed over $124 million worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time after Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).