Nov 12, 2015

Henry Selick Key and Peel and develop animation features

Henry Selick, director of Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas, is developing a a stop motion animated feature with comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Variety reported exclusively last week.

Based on an original idea by Selick, Wendell and Wild sounds like your standard dark stop motion fare, with demons and goths in the starring roles. Key and Peele will voice two demon brothers who challenge a demon-fighting nun, Sister Helly, and her teenaged goth assistants Kat and Raoul.

Selick is co-writing Wendell and Wild with Peele, and will direct and produce. No studio is attached to the project yet.

Selick has not directed a project since the 2009 Laika film Coraline. He spent two years working on The Shadow King before Disney shut down the film mid-production.

More recently Selick had been attached to direct the live-action adaptation of Adam Gidwitz's novel A Tale Dark and Grimm. He told Variety that the project had to be delayed after his mother became ill, though he hopes to return to it at some point.

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