Early WILDWOOD Reactions Call It Laika’s Best Film Yet, With Epic Battles Compared to THE LORD OF THE RINGS
Laika may have just delivered its greatest film yet! Early reactions to the studio’s upcoming stop-motion fantasy adventure Wildwood come pouring in following its world premiere at the London Film Festival, and critics are throwing around some pretty incredible praise.
We’re talking comparisons to The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, with some calling it the best movie Laika has ever made.
That’s a pretty big deal for the animation studio responsible for films like Coraline, ParaNorman, and Kubo and the Two Strings, but it sounds like director Travis Knight and his team have created something truly special.
@TheNextBestPicture described the film as "a masterpiece of stop-motion animation" featuring "battle sequences that rivals the work seen in Game of Thrones or The Lord Of The Rings.”
That's some seriously big praise, especially for a stop-motion animated movie. Laika has always been known for its incredible craftsmanship, but pulling off fantasy battles on that scale using practical puppets and handcrafted environments sounds absolutely insane.
Meanwhile, @justmiaslife called the movie "A testament to the limitless possibilities of animation." Then there's @MainstreamMatt, who went even further, declaring it the studio's finest achievement:
"Wildwood is Laika's crowning achievement. One for the ages. The kind of film which if I had seen it as a kid I would have watched it hundreds of times since. Staggering 'how did they do that?' world-building animation, and an emotionally rich story. My favourite of 2026."
It's hard not to get excited reading reactions like these! The fact that critics are praising both the animation and the emotional storytelling makes this sound like exactly the kind of fantasy adventure that sticks with audiences long after the credits roll.
The movie has also been a massive undertaking for Laika. Wildwood has been 16 years in the making and ranks among the largest stop-motion productions ever attempted.
Laika's chief marketing and operations officer David Burke previously offered some impressive details about the production:
“It means that we’ve got 136 locations in the feature, and many of them are so large that the crew can walk through them. There’s 231 practical puppets, 54 hero characters, and each and every one of them has been engineered and costumed like a bespoke work of art.”
That's an incredible amount of work, and knowing that so much of what we're going to see was physically built makes the early praise even more exciting.
Based on the fantasy novel by Colin Meloy, frontman of The Decemberists, and illustrated by Carson Ellis, Wildwood tells the story of Prue, voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, whose baby brother is kidnapped by a murder of crows.
Refusing to leave him behind, Prue ventures into a forbidden forest outside Portland, Oregon, alongside her classmate Curtis, voiced by Jacob Tremblay.
Inside the forest, they discover a strange and dangerous world filled with talking animals, bandits, mysterious creatures, and powerful figures. What begins as a mission to rescue Prue's brother soon becomes something much bigger, with the fate of the entire forest at stake.
The movie also features an impressive voice cast that includes Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Richard E. Grant, Awkwafina, Amandla Stenberg, Tom Waits, and Charlie Day.
Of course, the big question now is whether all this praise will translate into box-office success. With an estimated production budget of $100 million, Wildwood reportedly faces a challenging theatrical run. According to BoxOfficePro, the film could open domestically with around $10 million.
That's a tough number for a production of this size, especially considering the years of work that went into bringing it to life.
Laika's films have often found devoted audiences over time, but it would be awesome to see Wildwood become a major theatrical hit right out of the gate. If these early reactions are any indication, the studio has made something worth experiencing on the big screen.
I've been looking forward to this movie for a long time, and hearing critics compare its action sequences to The Lord of the Rings has only made me more excited! I love seeing what Laika can accomplish with stop-motion animation, and this sounds like the studio operating at an entirely new level.
We'll find out for ourselves when Wildwood arrives in theaters on October 23, 2026.