Aug 21, 2016

Exclusive: Leica Chief Travis Knight reveals future plans for the studio

Last Thursday at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City, Laika president and CEO Travis Knight revealed future plans for his Portland-based stop motion studio.

Knight, who directed the studio's newly released Kubo and the Two Strings, explained during a conversation with filmmaker and historian John Canemaker that Laika is not only ramping up feature film production, but will begin to explore a broader ranger of subject matter than the studio's first four feature films, which have all featured child protagonists.

Cartoon Brew received an exclusive transcript of the discussion between Knight and Canemaker. Below, we present some highlights of the conversation about where Laika is headed, beginning with a discussion about a shift in the studio's subject matter:

Knight also said that he aims to ramp up production to the point where the studio is releasing a film annually instead of one every two years as it currently does:

As for sequels, don't expect them from Laika anytime soon:

And what about making a hand-drawn feature, an idea that Knight first floated in 2014- He's still enthused by the idea, though it doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon:

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