Trailer Tuesday: Coraline

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I'll only be getting into the office later on Tuesday, so here's this week's trailer posted up an hour or so before it's officially 4th March.

Coraline is only set for release in February 2009, but the stop-motion animated film has been so long in development now that it's hardly surprising a teaser trailer has already popped up online.

Based on the creepy children's story by fantasy master Neil Gaiman, Coraline focuses on a precocious little girl who moves house with her parents and discovers a bricked-up doorway in the family's "new" house. When Coraline re-opens the door later she discovers a warped mirror universe where her "other" parents (who both have buttons for eyes) lavish attention on her. The only problem is that once the fun is over, Coraline's Other Mother and Other Father are not at all keen for the young girl to return to her real world and real parents...


The film version of Coraline is adapted for the screen and directed by Henry Selick, the man who helmed offbeat stop-motion classics The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.

Granted the teaser trailer for Coraline is only 50 seconds long, but it gives off a definite Alice in Wonderland meets Pan's Labyrinth meets The Nightmare Before Christmas meets Spirited Away vibe. The film certainly doesn't look like standard, wholesome family fare. Which is always a big plus in my books.

As it stands I am very curious to see how the final product turns out, especially since the film seems to be really pushing the limits of stop-motion puppetry. For the record, Coraline is going to be the first stop-motion animated movie filmed for 3D release.

My only real concern is that Dakota Fanning, and that most annoying of Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher are voicing Coraline and her mother respectively... and I'm afraid I have a limited tolerance for both actresses. If only Michelle Pfeiffer hadn't bailed on this project 4+ years ago, such worries wouldn't affect my enthusiasm for Coraline.

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