LAIKA Chief Surprises Comic-Con Crowd By Saying He Wants To Do Hand-Drawn Animation

At a presentation for LAIKA’s third stop motion feature The Boxtrolls, LAIKA’s CEO Travis Knight told San Diego Comic-Con audiences that he hopes to make a hand-drawn animated film at some point in the future. Slashfilm’s editor Peter Sciretta was in attendance and offers more context to Knight’s comments:

[Knight] says that every one of the Laika stop-motion movies feature small bits of hand-drawn animation composits [sic], but he would like to one day do a whole movie in the medium. It seems like they don’t have any definite plans but you could tell from his tone that it’s something he’s been considering for a while now.

If Knight chooses to pursue the idea, he would have no competion. While dozens of hand-drawn animated features are produced annually in Europe, Asia and Latin America, there has not been a big-studio hand-drawn production produced by an American company since 2011 when Disney released Winnie the Pooh.

(Thanks, Elliot Lobell)