This has never been seen in stop-motion animation: the creators of "The Witchwood" spoke about the insane scale and battle with 3000 characters

The studio that gave audiences "Coraline" spent seven years creating a new animated film.

Laika studio revealed details about the production of "The Witchwood," Travis Knight's new animated film. Work on it took seven years, and more than a thousand people were involved in its creation. During this time, the team built 132 sets, made 236 puppets, and over 140 thousand interchangeable faces for stop-motion animation. Details were meticulously monitored, so much so that the studio even had a dedicated employee responsible for the placement of wounds and scratches on the main character's hands.

One of the most challenging tasks was a large-scale battle involving about 3000 characters. The scene lasts 12 minutes and consists of more than 400 individual shots. Moreover, the set turned out to be so huge that it had to be divided into five parts: it simply did not fit entirely into the studio building.

According to Ollie Jones, Head of Characters and Practical Effects, nothing like this has ever been done in stop-motion animation before:

It was also previously announced that the runtime of "The Witchwood" will be about 140 minutes. Thus, it will become the longest feature-length animated film in the history of stop-motion animation.

According to the plot, a girl named Pru goes in search of her younger brother, who was kidnapped by crows. The international release of "The Witchwood" will begin on October 23, 2026, and the animated film will appear in Russian cinemas on December 3.