Mar 14, 2018

Netflix produces Henry Celik's Wendell and the Wild starring Key & Peel

In terms of feature animation, no one is coming close to what Netflix is doing right now.

The streamer announced today that it will finance and distribute the stop-motion animated feature, Wendell and Wild, to be directed by stop-mo icon Henry Selick, helmer of Coraline, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and James and the Giant Peach.

First announced back in 2015, Wendell and Wild is based on an original idea by Selick, and will be co-written by Selick, novelist Clay McLeod Chapman, and Jordan Peele, the latter of whom just won an Academy Award for his original screenplay of Get Out.

Peele will also voice one of the main characters, along with Keegan-Michael Key, his co-star from the Comedy Central series Key & Peele.

Argentinean illustrator/caricaturist Pablo Lobato is designing the characters, about which not much is known except that Key and Peele are two scheming demon brothers. In the original plot synopsis from a few years ago, the demon brtohers challenge a demon-fighting nun, Sister Helly, and her teenaged goth assistants Kat and Raoul.

Ellen Goldsmith-Vein of The Gotham Group will produce, along with Peele through his Monkeypaw banner, and Selick. Sarah Serata is a co-producer. Executive producers are Win Rosenfeld (Monkeypaw), Peter Principato and Joel Zadak (Principato-Young), and Lindsay Williams and Eddie Gamarra (Gotham Group).

This marks Netflix's second original stop-motion feature pick-up; the studio also acquired the currently in-proudction Bubbles, a film about Michael Jackson's pet chimp, produced by Anomalisa maker Starburns Industries and co-directed by Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) and Mark Gustafson (animation director, Fantastic Mr. Fox).

Other recent Netflix animated feature announcements are Sergio Pablos' 2d holiday tale Klaus and Glen Keane's Chinese cg project Over the Moon.

News about Wendell and Wild was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.

(Photo credits: Key & Peele via Shutterstock.com/Helga Esteb. Henry Selick via Shutterstock.com/s_bukley.)