Wildwood Goes Viral With 90 Million Views as LAIKA Champions Handmade Animation
LAIKA’s Wildwood has passed 90 million teaser views ahead of its October release, with 231 puppets and 136 sets bringing its huge stop motion world to life.
At a time when artificial intelligence can generate images and entire digital worlds in seconds, one of 2026’s most anticipated animated films is attracting attention for doing almost the opposite.
LAIKA’s Wildwood has been created through an enormous stop motion production involving 231 practical puppets and 136 sets. The early response suggests audiences are interested, with its teaser passing 90 million views on YouTube ahead of the film’s release.
Thousands of hours behind a single character
Wildwood is the latest film from LAIKA, the animation studio behind Coraline, ParaNorman and Kubo and the Two Strings. It is directed by Travis Knight and adapts the fantasy novel written by Colin Meloy and illustrated by Carson Ellis.
The scale of the production is particularly striking. One character, a golden eagle known as The General, reportedly required around 3,000 hours of work to create.
That level of production sits in sharp contrast to the growing availability of generative AI tools capable of producing animation and imagery far more quickly.
LAIKA is not avoiding technology completely. Modern visual effects and filmmaking tools remain part of the studio’s process, but the physical puppets, sets and frame by frame animation continue to sit at the heart of its films.
Wildwood finds a huge early audience
The film follows Prue McKeel as she enters a hidden forest after her baby brother is taken by crows. Peyton Elizabeth Lee voices Prue, with a cast that also includes Carey Mulligan, Jacob Tremblay, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Awkwafina and Richard E. Grant.
Wildwood is due to arrive in US cinemas on October 23, 2026, with international distribution also planned.
Its teaser reaching more than 90 million views is particularly notable for an original stop motion fantasy rather than an established blockbuster franchise.
It also arrives as entertainment companies continue experimenting with faster AI assisted production methods. Wildwood offers a very different example of where animation can go, showing that painstaking physical filmmaking can still generate enormous attention in a rapidly changing industry.
SoapLandTV is following how AI and new technology are changing film, television, animation and digital entertainment.
Check out our other AI related articles for more on the technology shaping entertainment and the creators taking a very different approach.
