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Coraline (film)

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Coraline
Coraline and her cat crawl over an open doorway with light coming from it. The film's tagline reads "Be careful what you wish for" which is written on the wall. On the film's logo, a button is used for the "O" and a cat with a tail sticking out as an "L", with another door with light coming out.
Theatrical release poster
Directed byHenry Selick
Screenplay byHenry Selick
Based onCoraline
by Neil Gaiman
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography
  • Pete Kozachik
Edited by
Music byBruno Coulais
Production
companies
Distributed byFocus Features (Untied States)
Universal Pictures (International)
Release dates
Running time
100 minutes[2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$60 million[3][4]
Box office$185 million[3]

Coraline is a 2009 American stop-motion animated dark fantasy horror film written for the screen and directed by Henry Selick. It is based on the 2002 novella of the same name by Neil Gaiman.[5] Produced by Laika, as the studio's first feature film,[6] it features the voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., and Ian McShane. The film tells the story of its eponymous character discovering an idealized alternate universe behind a secret door in her new home, unaware that it contains something dark and sinister.

Just as Gaiman was finishing his novella, he met Selick and invited him to make a film adaptation, as Gaiman was a fan of Selick's other stop-motion works, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996). When Selick thought that a direct adaptation would lead to "maybe a 47-minute movie", the screenplay was expanded. Looking for a design different from that of most animation, Selick discovered the work of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi and invited him to become the concept artist. His biggest influences were on the color palette, which was muted in the real world and more colorful in the Other World, as in The Wizard of Oz. To capture stereoscopy for the 3D release, the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions. Production of the stop-motion animation took place at a warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon.[7]

Coraline premiered at the Portland International Film Festival on February 5, 2009,[8] and was theatrically released in the United States on February 6, by Focus Features. It received positive reviews from critics and grossed $185 million worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time, following Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).[9] The film won Annie Awards for Best Music in an Animated Feature Production, Best Character Design in an Animated Feature Production, and Best Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. It has developed a cult following in the years since its release and is considered one of the greatest animated films of all time.

Plot

Eleven-year-old Coraline Jones and her parents, Charlie and Mel, move from Pontiac, Michigan, into the Pink Palace Apartments, an old Victorian house in Ashland, Oregon. While searching for an old well, she meets a mysterious black cat and Wyborn "Wybie" Lovat, the grandson of Coraline's landlady, who gives her a lookalike rag doll. Since her parents are too busy with work, Coraline entertains herself by exploring the house, discovering a small door with a brick wall behind it in the living room. That night, she finds that the brick wall has been replaced by a tunnel, which leads her to an "Other World", where her parents' button-eyed doppelgängers lavish her with delicious food and their attention.

Upon waking in the morning, Coraline finds herself back in the real world. She meets her other neighbors: Mr. Bobinsky, an eccentric Russian liquidator-turned-gymnast who owns a mouse circus, and retired burlesque performers April Spink and Miriam Forcible. Bobinsky and Spink warn Coraline about the Other World, and Wybie tells her about how his grandmother's twin sister disappeared when they were children.

Coraline returns to the Other World that night, where she meets a mute Other Wybie. Together, they both see the Other Bobinsky's mouse circus. When she returns yet again, the cat, who can travel between the worlds, arrives and warns her about the Other World. After seeing the Other Spink and Forcible's theater performance with the Other Wybie, the Other Mother offers Coraline to stay in the Other World forever, on the condition that buttons are sewn onto her eyes. Horrified, Coraline desperately tries to fall asleep, but she is still in the Other World. She tries to escape by running away from the Other World, but she learns from the cat that that the house and the grounds were what the Other Mother made. When Coraline tries to escape through the door, the Other Mother transforms into a taller, skeletal form and imprisons her in a dark room through a mirror.

There, three ghost children, one of whom Coraline recognizes as the landlady's missing sister, tell Coraline that the Other Mother is an evil entity called the "Beldam", who used rag dolls to spy on their unhappy lives and lure them into the Other World with treats and games; they allowed her to sew buttons over their eyes, and she subsequently locked their souls inside the mirror. After Coraline promises to help the ghost children by retrieving their eyes, a now frowning Other Wybie sends her home.

Back in the real world, Wybie asks Coraline for the doll, as it belongs to his grandmother's missing sister. She attempts to explain the situation to him, but he disbelieves her and storms out. Coraline borrows an adder stone from Spink and Forcible, and after the cat informs her that the Beldam has kidnapped her parents, the two set out to rescue them. Knowing that the Beldam is a fan of games, Coraline proposes a deal: if she finds her parents and the eyes of the ghost children, the Beldam will set them all free; if not, she will stay and allow the Beldam to sew the buttons on her eyes.

The Beldamn reveals that each of the missing eyes is hidden within the three "wonders" she designed for Coraline. As Coraline searches the house and the grounds, she is shocked to see the Beldam's creations reveal their true colors. In the garden, the Other Father is now a sad and pitiful pumpkin-like humanoid and he protests to Coraline that he doesn't want to hurt her with his praying mantis-shaped harvester. In the theater downstairs, the Other Spink and Forcible are now a conjoined taffy monster inside a wrapper. And in the upstairs flat, the Other Bobinsky is revealed to be clothes filled with rats. As Coraline finds and collects each eye using the adder stone, she frees the spirits of the ghost children and the Other World begins to fade until all three are collected and only the house remains. The Beldam, now a spider-like monster, challenges Coraline to find her parents. Realizing they are trapped in a nearby snow globe and that the Beldam will not let her go, she throws the cat to distract her before narrowly escaping through the door with the ghost children's help, severing the Beldam's hand in the process. Coraline's parents return with no recollection of being kidnapped, and she warmly embraces them.

At night, the ghosts warn Coraline that the Beldam is still after the cursed key. As Coraline heads toward the backyard well to dispose of it, the Beldam's severed hand sneaks into the real world and attempts to drag her back in, but Wybie comes to the rescue and destroys the hand, and they both throw the key and the hand's remains into the well. The next day, the Jones family hosts a garden party for the Pink Palace residents. Wybie accompanies his grandmother to the party, as Coraline begins to tell her about her missing sister's fate.

Voice cast

Production

"Coraline [was] a huge risk. But these days in animation, the safest bet is to take a risk."

Director Henry Selick met author Neil Gaiman just as Gaiman was finishing the novel Coraline, which was published in 2002, and as Gaiman was a fan of Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), he invited him to make a film adaptation. As Selick thought a direct adaptation would lead to "maybe a 47-minute movie", his screenplay had some expansions, such as the creation of Wybie, who was not present in the original novel. When looking for a design different from that of most animation, Selick discovered the work of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi and invited him to become the concept artist. One of Uesugi's biggest influences was on the color palette, which was muted in reality and more colorful in the Other World, as in The Wizard of Oz (1939).[11] Uesugi said: "at the beginning, it was supposed to be a small project over a few weeks to simply create characters; however, I ended up working on the project for over a year, eventually designing sets and backgrounds, on top of drawing the basic images for the story to be built upon."[12]

Coraline was staged in a 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m2) warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon.[10][13] The stage was divided into 50 lots,[14] which played host to nearly 150 sets.[10] Among the sets were three miniature Victorian mansions, a 42-foot (12.8 m) apple orchard, and a model of Ashland, Oregon, including tiny details such as banners for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.[13] The Amazing Garden scene was the most complicated set created for the film. The hundreds of handmade flowers were created to grow and move accordingly for when Coraline entered the garden.[6] More than 28 animators worked at a time on rehearsing or shooting scenes, producing 90–100 seconds of finished animation each week.[15] To capture stereoscopy for the 3D release, the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions.[11]

Every object on the screen was made for the film.[11] The crew used three 3D printing systems from Objet in the development and production of the film. Thousands of high-quality 3D models, ranging from facial expressions to doorknobs, were printed in 3D using the Polyjet matrix systems, which enable the fast transformation of CAD (computer-aided design) drawings into high-quality 3D models.[16] The puppets had separate parts for the upper and lower parts of the head that could be exchanged for different facial expressions,[11] and the characters could exhibit over 208,000 facial expressions.[16] In the "Hidden Worlds: The Films of LAIKA" exhibit at Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture, the sign for "Replacing Faces" display said there were 207,336 possible face combinations for Coraline and 17,633 for her mother. There were 28 identical puppets of Coraline. Each one took 3–4 months to make and usually took 10 people to construct each one.[17] Computer artists composited separately shot elements together or added their elements, which had to look handcrafted, not computer-generated; for instance, the flames were done with traditional animation and painted digitally, and the fog was dry ice.[11]

At its peak, the film involved the efforts of 450 people,[10] including 30[13] to 35[10] animators and digital designers in the Digital Design Group (DDG), directed by Dan Casey, and more than 250 technicians and designers.[13] Principal photography took 18 months. One crew member, Althea Crome, was hired specifically to knit miniature sweaters and other clothing for the puppet characters, sometimes using knitting needles as thin as human hair.[10] A single garment could take anywhere from six weeks to six months to complete. The clothes also simulated wear using paint and a file.[11]

Music

Main article: Coraline (soundtrack)

The soundtrack for Coraline features songs by Bruno Coulais, with one ("Other Father Song") by They Might Be Giants. The Other Father's singing voice is provided by John Linnell, one of the band's singers. The band was hired to write an entire soundtrack for the film, but according to John Flansburgh, the production team "wanted the music to be more creepy", and only one song was ultimately used.[18] Coulais's score was performed by the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra and features choral pieces sung by the Children's Choir of Nice in a nonsense language.[19] The main soloist, a young girl heard singing in several parts of the film, is coincidentally named Coraline.[19] Coraline won Coulais the 2009 Annie Award for best score for an animated feature.

Reception

Box office

According to Paul Dergarabedian, a film business analyst with Media by Numbers, for the film to succeed it needed a box office comparable to Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which had grossed $16 million its opening weekend and ended up grossing $125 million worldwide. Before the film's release, Dergarabedian thought Laika Studios "should be pleased" was Coraline to make $10 million in its opening weekend,[13] in its US opening weekend, the film grossed $16.85 million, ranking third at the box office.[9] It made $15 million during its second weekend, bringing its U.S. total up to $35.6 million, $25.5 million of which came from 3D presentations.[20]

The film was rereleased on August 14, 2023, where it grossed over $7 million over four days.[21][22] It was rereleased the following year in 3D on August 16, 2024, and made $12.5 million in four days, finishing fifth at the box office.[22][23] By August 23, the 2024 re-release had grossed $29.2 million worldwide making it the highest grossing re-release in the history of Fathom Events.[24][25] As of September 15, 2024, the film had grossed an additional $52.1 million worldwide, bringing its lifetime total gross to $185 million worldwide.[3]

Critical response

On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 91% based on 278 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With its vivid stop-motion animation combined with Neil Gaiman's imaginative story, Coraline is a film that's both visually stunning and wondrously entertaining."[26] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100 based on reviews from 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[27]

Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "a beautiful film about several nasty people" as well as "nightmare fodder for children, however brave, under a certain age."[28] David Edelstein said the film is "a bona fide fairy-tale" that needed a "touch less entrancement and a touch more ... story."[29] A. O. Scott of The New York Times called the film "exquisitely realized", with a "slower pace and a more contemplative tone than the novel. It is certainly exciting, but rather than race through ever noisier set pieces toward a hectic climax in the manner of so much animation aimed at kids, Coraline lingers in an atmosphere that is creepy, wonderfully strange, and full of feeling."[30]

Accolades

Awards and nominations
Award Category Recipient(s) Result
Academy Awards Best Animated Feature Henry Selick Nominated
American Film Institute Awards Best 10 Movies Won
Annie Awards
Best Animated Feature Nominated
Best Directing in an Animated Feature Production Henry Selick Nominated
Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production Dawn French Nominated
Best Music in an Animated Feature Production Bruno Coulais Won
Best Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production Travis Knight Nominated
Best Character Design in an Animated Feature Production Shane Prigmore; Shannon Tindle Won
Best Production Design in an Animated Feature Production Christopher Appelhans; Tadahiro Uesugi Won
Best Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production Chris Butler Nominated
Annecy International Animated Film Festival Best Feature – Tied Won
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards Best Animated Feature Nominated
BAFTA Awards Best Animated Film Nominated
British Academy Children's Awards Best Feature Film Bill Mechanic, Henry Selick, Claire Jennings, Mary Sandell Won
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards Best Animated Feature Nominated
Cinema Audio Society Awards
Lifetime Achievement Henry Selick Won
Career Achievement (sound designer/re-recording mixer) Randy Thom Won
EDA Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award
Best Animated Female (the character of Coraline) Won
Best Animated Film Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Best Animated Feature Film Nominated
Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Music, Dialogue and ADR Animation in a Feature Film Nominated
Online Film Critics Society Awards Best Animated Film Nominated
People's Choice Awards Best Animated 3D Movie of 2009 Nominated
Producers Guild of America Awards Producer of the Year in Animated Motion Picture Nominated
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards Best Animated Feature Won
St. Louis Film Critics Awards Best Animated Film Nominated
Visual Effects Society Awards
Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture Claire Jennings, Henry Selick Nominated
Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture Coraline – Lead Animators Travis Knight and Trey Thomas Nominated
Outstanding Effects Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture John Allan Armstrong, Richard Kent Burton, Craig Dowsett Nominated
Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture Deborah Cook, Matthew DeLeu, Paul Mack, Martin Meunier Nominated
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Best Animated Film Nominated

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on July 21, 2009, by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. A 3-D version comes with four sets of 3-D glasses—specifically the green-magenta anaglyph image. Coraline was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on October 12, 2009. A 3-D version of the film was also released on a 2-disc Collector's Edition. The DVD opened to first-week sales of 1,036,845 and over $19 million in revenue. Total sales stand at over 2.6 million units and over $45 million in revenue.[4] A two-disc Blu-ray 3D set, which includes a stereoscopic 3D on the first disc and an anaglyph 3D image, was released in 2011. A new edition from Shout! Factory under license from Universal was released on August 31, 2021.[31] The film was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on December 13, 2022.[32]

Video game

The website for Coraline involves an interactive exploration game where the player can scroll through Coraline's world. It won the 2009 Webby Award for "Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics", both by the people and the Webby organization. It was also nominated for the Webby "Movie and Film" category.[33] On June 16, 2008, D3 Publisher announced the release of a video game based on the film. It was developed by Papaya Studio for the Wii and PlayStation 2 and by Art Co. for Nintendo DS. It was released on January 27, 2009, close to the film's theatrical release.[34] The soundtrack was released digitally February 3, 2009, by E1 Music, and in stores on February 24, 2009.

See also

References

  1. ^ Hudetz, Mary (February 8, 2009). "Made in Oregon: animated 'Coraline'". KVAL. Archived from the original on March 6, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  2. ^ "Coraline rated PG by the BBFC". BBFC. January 29, 2009. Archived from the original on April 24, 2009. Retrieved April 5, 2009. Run Time 100m 19s
  3. ^ a b c "Coraline". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
  4. ^ a b "Coraline (2009) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Nash Information Services. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
  5. ^ Savage, Annaliza (November 14, 2008). "Gaiman Calls Coraline the Strangest Stop-Motion Film Ever". Wired.com. Condé Nast Digital. Retrieved August 18, 2011.
  6. ^ a b "Who We Are - LAIKA Studios". Retrieved October 20, 2023.
  7. ^ "Coraline - LAIKA Studios". Retrieved August 16, 2023.
  8. ^ Turnquist, Kristi (February 5, 2009). "'Coraline' premiere offers Portland some Hollywood glitter". OregonLive.com. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
  9. ^ a b DiOrio, Carl (February 8, 2009). "Moviegoers into 'Into You'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  10. ^ a b c d e f McNichol, Tom (February 2009). "Hollywood Knights". Portland Monthly. Retrieved February 15, 2009.
  11. ^ a b c d e f "The Making of Coraline", Coraline DVD
  12. ^ Desowitz, Bill (January 23, 2009). "Tadahiro Uesugi Talks 'Coraline' Design". Animation World. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  13. ^ a b c d e Mesh, Aaron (February 4, 2009). "Suspended Animation". Willamette Week. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009. Retrieved February 10, 2009.
  14. ^ "Backstage view (19th of 21 backlot production photos)". David Strick's Hollywood Backlot. Los Angeles Times. August 7, 2008. Retrieved February 15, 2009. Backstage view of the facility in which Coraline's stop-motion animation is filmed in Portland, Oregon. The Coraline stage is divided into approximately 50 units separated by black curtains. Each unit contains a different set that is in the process of being dressed, lit, rigged, or shot.
  15. ^ J. McLean, Thomas (September 16, 2008). "On the Set with 'Coraline': Where the Motion Doesn't Stop". Animation World Network. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  16. ^ a b Objet Geometries (February 5, 2009). "Objet Geometries' 3-D Printers Play Starring Role in New Animated Film Coraline". PR Newswire UK. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  17. ^ "Coraline - LAIKA Studios". www.laika.com. Retrieved October 31, 2023.
  18. ^ Martin, Spencer (January 16, 2009). "They Might Be Giants (Almost) Entirely Cut Out Of 'Coraline'?". The Playlist. Retrieved March 8, 2024.
  19. ^ a b Capone (February 2, 2009). "Capone Talks with Coraline Director and Wizard Master Henry Selick". Ain't It Cool News. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
  20. ^ Brandon Gray (February 17, 2009). "Holdovers Live Under Killer Friday Debut". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  21. ^ "Coraline's Box Office Behind Only Barbie & Oppenheimer This Week". Gizmodo. August 16, 2023. Retrieved August 16, 2023.
  22. ^ a b Goldsmith, Jill (August 18, 2024). "The Enduring Allure Of 'Coraline' At The Specialty Box Office". Deadline. Retrieved August 19, 2024.
  23. ^ "Coraline (15th Anniversary)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 20, 2024.
  24. ^ "'Coraline' Creeps and Crawls Her Way to Yet Another Global Box Office Milestone". Collider. Retrieved August 25, 2024.
  25. ^ Fuster, Jeremy (August 23, 2024). "'Coraline' Is a Box Office Hit Again, Marking a News Chapter for Laika".
  26. ^ "Coraline (2009)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved September 10, 2024.
  27. ^ "Coraline Reviews". Metacritic. February 5, 2009. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
  28. ^ Roger Ebert (February 4, 2009). "A beautiful film about several nasty people". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
  29. ^ Edelstein, David (February 1, 2009). "What You See Is What You Get". New York Magazine. Retrieved February 16, 2009.
  30. ^ Scott, A.O. (February 6, 2009). "Cornered in a Parallel World". The New York Times. Retrieved February 16, 2009.
  31. ^ "Coraline Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com.
  32. ^ "Coraline - 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray". Amazon.
  33. ^ "13th Annual Webby Awards Nominees & Winners". The Webby Awards. Archived from the original on March 7, 2013. Retrieved June 13, 2009.
  34. ^ Remo, Chris (June 16, 2008). "D3 Announces Coraline And Shaun The Sheep Adaptations". Gamasutra. Retrieved June 16, 2008.
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