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It’s been six years since the release of “Missing Link,” the fifth stop-motion animated film from the Portland-based animation house Laika. If you don’t remember it, that’s because the $100 million film — though well reviewed with an 88 percent Rotten Tomatoes score — was a financial bomb, bringing in only $26.5 million globally. Prior Laika films were all budgeted in the $60 million range and were almost all consistent performers at the box office with around $100 million globally, but reports at the time estimated “Missing Link” could have lost over $100 million after expenses.

The onset of Covid-19 in early 2020 didn’t help Laika bounce back. The pandemic severely hampered the company’s ability to work by hand in their tactile animation facility in the Oregon woodlands, such that production on the company’s next ambitious stop-motion epic, “Wildwood,” did not formally begin until September 2021. The company’s founder, Travis Knight, in the...

The Copeland Brothers have found a new home.

Chris and Justin Copeland, who have worked on “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts,” “Batman: The Killing Joke” and Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” cartoon, have joined stop-motion studio Laika to develop animated feature projects. Travis Knight, president and CEO of Laika, made the announcement.

The Copeland Brothers, as they are collectively known, have been working for the past five years on feature and series projects for DreamWorks Animation. The feature they were working on for DreamWorks is not going forward; hence their pivot to Laika, TheWrap has learned. However, a short film that they were working on for the studio is coming soon.

The Copelands join a growing list of filmmakers who are working on projects for the Portland, Oregon-based animation studio, including Pete Candeland, who has directed a number of Gorillaz music videos; Víctor Maldonado and Alfredo Torres, who...

“Super Giant Robot Brothers” is a new 3D animated action-comedy coming to Netflix in days, and TheWrap has an exclusive sneak peek at a scene from the series.

In the clip, which you can watch below, Shiny (the red one) accuses Thunder (the silver one) of stealing his, well, “thunder.”

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The series will find the robot siblings working together to defend Earth when space monsters attack.

Marisa Davila, Chris Diamantopoulos and Delbert Hunt voice the main characters in the series.

“Super Giant Robot Brothers” hails from creators Victor Maldonado and Alfredo Torres.

All episodes of the new animated series drop Aug. 4 on Netflix.

Read original story ‘Super Giant Robot Brothers’ Exclusive Sneak Peek Features Epic Sibling Rivalry (Video) At TheWrap...

The July lineup at The Criterion Channel has been revealed, most notably featuring the new Wong Kar Wai restorations from the recent box set release, including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his shorts Hua yang de nian hua and The Hand.

Also among the lineup is a series on neo-noir with Body Double, Manhunter, Thief, The Last Seduction, Cutter’s Way, Brick, Night Moves, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and more. The channel will also feature a spotlight on art-house animation with work by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more.

With Jodie Mack’s delightful The Grand Bizarre, the landmark doc Hoop Dreams, Orson Welles’ take on Othello, the recent Oscar entries Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and You Will Die at Twenty, and much more,...

With “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” and its new Bear Grylls series “You vs. Wild,” Netflix is experimenting with letting audiences pick the story direction of the series they watch. But a different unconventional approach to surfacing shows to subscribers has garnered some recent attention. “Love, Death, and Robots,” which premiered on the streaming platform last Friday, is an animated anthology aimed at an adult audience. From executive producers David Fincher and Tim Miller, the 18-episode collection spans different styles of animation and centers mainly on the three thematic groups in the title.

Some viewers are noticing that these installments are being presented in different orders, depending on the user. The official Netflix Twitter account responded Tuesday to a thread claiming that this difference was tailored to the viewer’s identity or background.

We've never had a show like Love, Death & Robots before so we're trying something completely new: presenting four different episode orders.

Venice International Film Festival

Animakios, Filmax

VENICE, Italy -- Nocturna is a graceful and entertaining animated film for children, which deserves an opportunity although it eschews the splashy effects and big name voices of major studio animation.

Screened out of competition in the Venice Nights sidebar at the Venice International Film Festival, the 83-minute production from Barcelona is handsomely drawn telling a charming tale of an orphan who learns why he shouldn't be scared of the dark.

Co-directors Victor Maldonado and Adria Garcia, who wrote the screenplay with Teresa Vilardell, imagine a world where all the things that go bump in the night are carefully managed by teams of exotic characters.

At a city orphanage, little Tim has found a way to ease his nighttime fears by connecting with his own personal star in the sky named Adhara. But when Adhara's light goes out he ventures into the dark to find out what's happened. There he meets such weird and wonderful characters such as the Cat Shepherd, the Star Keeper and a mischievous urchin named Pee, who's the guilty party whenever a bed is wet.

With the help of a cat named Tobermory, some stalwart light bulbs known as Luminouses, and the bright North Star, Tim learns how to deal with his fears and battle a scary wraith named the Shadow.

The uncredited voices are bland but the images are clever and entertaining, and the film should end up on many a nipper's DVD shelf.

NOCTURNA

Animakios, Filmax

Credits:

Directors: Victor Maldonado, Adria Garcia

Animation director: Valentin Amador

Writers: Victor Maldonado, Adria Garcia, Teresa Vilardell

Producers: Julio Fernandez, Philippe Garell

Executive producers: Carlos Fernandez, Marie-Laurence Turpin

Production designer: Alfredo Torres

Music: Nicolas Errera

Editor: Felix Bueno

Running time -- 83 minutes

No MPAA rating...

MADRID -- Juan Antonio Bayona's grim ghost story The Orphanage will open this year's International Film Festival of Catalonia at Sitges, organizers said Thursday as they unveiled the initial details of the festival's 40th anniversary program.

Sitges, which has become a must for fantasy filmmakers, runs Oct. 4-14 in the Mediterranean coastal town just south of Barcelona and is the main festival for Spain's northeastern Catalan region.

The image of this year's festival is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Blade Runner. Visiting Sitges will be two of the people responsible for the visual genius of Ridley Scott's film: production designer Syd Mead and head of visual and photographic effects Douglas Trumbull.

Sitges will be an important showcase for Spanish productions this year, with the territory represented by such films as Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza's Rec, Nacho Viglondo's Timecrimes, Gonzal Lopez-Gallero's King of the Mountain, Manuel Carballo's Los Justos and Adria Garcia and Victor Maldonado's animated Nocturna.

In addition, the Official Fantastic Section will include some of the season's most-awaited motion pictures, including I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK, directed by Park Chan-wook; The Fall, directed by Tarsem Singh; and Sundance hit Teeth, directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein.