‘Wildwood’ Passes a LAIKA Milestone, but Not the One Fans Wanted
LAIKA has spent years building a reputation as the studio that treats stop-motion like high art. Its films tend to land with critics in a big way, and they tend to hang around in fans’ hearts long after they leave theaters.
‘Wildwood’ was supposed to be the studio’s grandest swing yet. Directed by Travis Knight, it runs 131 minutes, making it the longest stop-motion animated film ever made, and it is also LAIKA’s first PG-13 release.
The adoration has been loud, too. The film holds a 100 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned an A CinemaScore, with Carey Mulligan, Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Jacob Tremblay leading the voice cast. The money, however, tells a more complicated story.
According to a recent post from ToonHive, ‘Wildwood’ has now crossed $35M globally against a $100M budget. That makes it the studio’s second-lowest-grossing film, since it edges out ‘Missing Link’ but still sits well below the rest of the LAIKA catalog.
The latest tally lines up with the numbers. Deadline reported a $12.3M global second weekend, split between $7.5M domestic and $4.8M overseas, for a running total of $35.8M. That is comfortably ahead of the $26.5M that ‘Missing Link’ pulled in over its lifetime.
That is a small victory with a big asterisk. ‘Missing Link’ carried its own $100M budget and was labeled a box office bomb after grossing $26.6M. ‘Wildwood’ arrives with the same reported $100M price tag, which sets a very high bar for profitability.
The opening weekend never quite gave it the lift it needed. The film debuted with an estimated $11.8M in North America and another $2.9M across 10 early international markets. According to The Numbers, that made it the second-lowest opening in LAIKA history, ahead of only ‘Missing Link’ at $5.9M.
There are some encouraging signs in the second frame. Domestically, the film slipped about 39% in its second weekend, holding on to 3,103 theaters. Distributor Fathom Entertainment had projected a hold in the range of 35% to 43%, which the outlet described as respectable and roughly in line with earlier LAIKA releases.
The international rollout is also still unfolding. ‘Wildwood’ expanded into 36 new territories that weekend, bringing its release to 47 countries, with more than two dozen markets still to open in the coming weeks and months. It debuted at No. 1 in Sweden and ranked No. 2 in Brazil.
The rest of the studio’s history shows how uneven the road can be. ‘The Boxtrolls’ earned $108M worldwide on a $60M budget, while ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ made $76M on the same budget, and both were considered disappointments. ‘Coraline’ has proved that LAIKA’s films can find a second life, as its 2024 re-release grossed over $52M worldwide.
That history is probably why hopes for ‘Wildwood’ now rest on word of mouth. Cartoon Brew noted that LAIKA films can enjoy a long commercial life, but that it is too early to say whether ‘Wildwood’ will follow that path.
For now, the film is stuck in an odd place, adored by those who have seen it and still searching for the crowds to match. Whether the remaining international markets and a long awards season can close that gap is the question LAIKA fans are watching.
