Vying for best animated feature of this year will be Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, Pixar’s Brave, Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, and ParaNorman from LAIKA, the team behind Coraline.
We saw a great new set of images from the animated stop-motion film last month, and with its release in the US only a month away, the film has set up a new website and debuted five fantastic posters from Mondo and their artists which will be put up across the US, and they want you to get involved:
“For the release of ParaNorman on August 17, 2012, Mondo and some of their most amazing artists have created a set of limited edition posters. The posters are up on walls all across the US, and they’re waiting for you to find them. If you do spot one in the wild, take a picture of it and tag it #WEIRDWINS.”
Over the next few weeks, they’ll also be releasing a new series of videos, focusing on the artists, animators, craftspeople, and filmmakers behind ParaNorman, and three have made their way online already – ‘You Don’t Become a Hero by Being’, ‘A Norman Childhood’, and ‘Faces of ParaNorman’. I particularly recommend the third, because Norman’s interchangeable expressions looks excellent.
“The new 3D stop-motion comedy thriller from animation company LAIKA, reteaming the company with Focus Features after the groundbreaking Academy Award-nominated “Coraline.” “ParaNorman” is, following “Coraline,” the company’s second stop-motion animated feature to be made in 3D. In “ParaNorman,” a small town comes under siege by zombies. Who can it call? Only misunderstood local boy Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is able to speak with the dead. In addition to the zombies, he’ll have to take on ghosts, witches and, worst, of all, grown-ups, to save his town from a centuries-old curse. But this young ghoul whisperer may find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits.”
Co-directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell (Flushed Away, The Tale of Desperaux) are working from Butler’s script, with Butler making both his writing and directorial debut. And the voice cast is expectedly brilliant, with Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In) as the eponymous Norman, alongside Casey Affleck, Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, John Goodman, Jeff Garlin, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
ParaNorman will be released in 3D on 17th August in the US and a little later on 14th September here in the UK, and it definitely looks like this will be one you’ll want to see.
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