“The most expensive animated film in history”: “Wildwood” grosses $14.7 million amid rumors of a budget over $400 million

Industry insiders suggest that the filmmakers are not overly concerned about profitability thanks to the backing of Nike’s co-founder.

LAIKA’s stop-motion animated film “Wildwood” grossed about $14.7 million in its opening worldwide weekend, with $11.8 million coming from the US and Canada. The film debuted above projections of $6–10 million, but even against the previously reported $100 million budget, such box office numbers look rather modest.

Now the spending story has taken an even more dramatic turn. Journalist Jeff Sneider reported in his newsletter The InSneider that production of “Wildwood” could have cost $400 million, while one of his sources even cited a figure of $700 million. Sneider himself doubts the latter number, but considers $400 million to be a plausible estimate, at least before accounting for potential tax incentives.

The journalist attributes such massive costs to the protracted production. Development of “Wildwood” began back in 2011, and direct work on the film took about six years. Over that time, more than a thousand artists and other specialists were involved in making the film, including a dedicated staff member tasked with tracking scratches and dirt marks on the main character.

Such a lengthy production was accompanied by an enormous amount of handcrafted work. The team crafted 236 puppets, built 132 sets, and prepared more than 142 thousand replacement faces for facial animation, while the biggest challenge was a twelve-minute final battle featuring around 3,000 characters. For this sequence, a massive set had to be built in five separate sections because it simply could not fit inside the studio building as a whole.

If the budget rumors are confirmed, “Wildwood” will become the most expensive animated film in history, surpassing even “Tangled” with its budget of around $260 million. At the same time, there is a view within the industry that LAIKA head Travis Knight is not overly concerned with the profitability of such projects.

It is assumed that he can afford to pursue “art for art’s sake” thanks to the financial support of his father, Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who serves as chairman of LAIKA and has helped finance its films. The studio itself has not yet commented on either the record budget rumors or its box office expectations.

“Wildwood” opens in Russian theaters on December 3.