Here's everything we learned from our set visit for Henry Selick's Wendell & Wild, starring Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Selick is the director of such stop-motion classics as 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1996's James and the Giant Peach, and 2009's Coraline. Wendell & Wild is not only his first collaboration with Netflix but also his first new feature in 13 years.
Wendell & Wild features a diverse cast who fill out its many characters. Comedians Key and Peele play the titular characters, a pair of scheming demon brothers who want to break away from their place in the underworld. Joining them on the dark, comedic, fantasy-filled adventure are Lyric Ross as Kat, Angela Bassett as Sister Helly, James Hong as Father Bests, and Ving Rhames as Buffalo Belzer. Additional cast members include Tamara Smart, Natalie Martinez, Tantoo Cardinal, Gabrielle Dennis, Igal Naor, David Harewood, Maxine Peake, Ramona Young, Sam Zelaya, Seema Virdi, and Gary Gatewood.
Screen Rant traveled to Portland, Oregon in late 2021 to visit the set of Wendell & Wild, learning everything about the latest stop-motion endeavor from Selick. The director was on hand to provide details and insight into the making of the film, talking about the early inspirations for it, how comedians Key & Peele became involved, character development, how he feels about the current state of stop-motion animated films, and much more. Check out everything Screen Rant learned from the Wendell & Wild set visit below:
The Origins Of Wendell & Wild
Wendell & Wild started out as a short story Selick had done many years ago, inspired by his sons (now grown). When they were little, Selick did a picture of them as demons “because they were somewhat demonic at times."
Selick later became a big fan of Key & Peele and reached out to the duo to see if they could find a project to collaborate on, saying:
I was so impressed by their work, so I said, "What the hell! I’ll reach out, they probably don’t know who I am or anything else," but I wanted to work with them, because I’m not known for comedy in my films. I mean, there’s always comedic elements. But, I really had this desire, "Wow, I’d love to work with them and bring what they do into a project that I’m on."
Wendell & Wild was the first project that Selick thought of for a collaboration with the comedians, as their character dynamic felt like a Key & Peele skit.
Jordan Peele met face-to-face with Selick and read over the pages he had for Netflix's Wendell & Wild, which prompted him to want to be more involved, coming aboard as a writer and producer on the film, contributing significantly to the characters and details in the film.
Peele pushed to start pitching Wendell & Wild before his 2017 film Get Out was released, for fear that if the film failed it would hurt the progress of Wendell & Wild. Ironically, Get Out was a huge hit and ended up opening doors for Wendell & Wild to be made.
The Characters
All of the characters in Wendell & Wild were created by Argentinean artist Pablo Lobato, whom Selick was a fan of, particularly his Pablo Picasso-inspired caricatures.
Each Wendell & Wild character had about 120 shapes built for each character to get a full range of expression. The faces have a magnet inside that allows quick changeout and adhesion.
A full team works to create the individual puppets of the fantasy-horror-adventure Wendell & Wild, from printing, painting, costumes, internal armature, etc., collaborating together and individually to from start to finish throughout the production. Because of their heavy use, the puppets are constantly repaired and maintained until production is complete
Wendell & Wild 's underworld setting isn't quite Hell, but something a bit different, as Selick describes:
"The underworld in the film is not THE Hell, it’s called the Scream Fair and it’s where the souls of the “danged” go. Not the damned, but the danged. The crooked lawyers and meter maids. The bad people, but not the truly bad. Their punishment is to ride an amusement park. It’s a cross between Disneyland and Hieronymus Bosch."
The titular characters' drive is to cross over to the Land of the Living in order to realize their plan of creating their own amusement park called The Dream Fair, which is ultimately a more favorable place for the "danged" to go. The idea is that they'd "raise the dead" in The Land of The Living to pay for it.
Kat has the ability to bring Wendell & Wild over to the living, bargaining with the demons that she’ll bring them over only if they bring back her parents. Kat is a natural-born Hellmaiden, a person born with a supernatural connection to the demonic, which is something they can use for good or evil.
The film takes place in the town of Rustbank, which used to house a successful brewery that fueled the economy, owned and run by Kat’s father. Sometime after their death, the brewery burned down mysteriously, sending the town into economical collapse. A British husband-and-wife duo named The Klaxxons want to take over the town, flatten it, and build a prison in its place, doing whatever it takes to make it happen.
The Power Of Stop-Motion
Selick is adamant about letting stop-motion look like stop-motion, embracing the flaws of the craft, rather than making a perfectly done CGI film, saying:
"There’s mistakes. The audience has to work a little more for them to believe in what they’re seeing. Not so much that it feels like work, but I think they become more invested if they make the effort, and I want them to, then the film becomes more a part of them. It’s not all lubricated imagery, perfectly done, that’s just like every other Hollywood CG film."
According to Selick, Wendell & Wild is "not as slick and perfect as Coraline" but champions the compelling story and characters along with the flawed stop-motion style will make the film "stand out as something very different."
Wendell & Wild is the closest to A Nightmare Before Christmas in terms of the atmosphere of the crew’s excitement for the project and is the closest Selick has come since then to reaching that same kind of feeling amongst the crew.
Selick initially didn't believe Wendell & Wild would get a PG-13 rating (although it is confirmed to be PG-13), due to the fact that he felt Coraline was scarier and was PG, saying. "[Wendell & Wild is] a comedy, fantasy, tragedy; it’s all those things. But, I don’t think it’s ever as scary as Coraline was. Coraline gets really scary at moments, and that was rated PG. I doubt [Wendell & Wild] will be PG-13. Although, part of me always wonders, 'Wouldn’t more kids want to see it if it’s PG-13?' Cause everybody wants to see the forbidden fruit."
There are many themes in Wendell & Wild's story, including "Don't judge things by the cover, be careful what you wish for, the importance of community, and that families aren’t made necessarily by blood."
The Present And The Future
On A Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline sequel, Selick says, "People have always wanted a sequel for Nightmare and Coraline. If there’s a good story it might be worth doing. But too, frequently sequels are just a remake of the first film with some mild changes." Stop-motion films are so hard to make, he wants to make sure the story is excellent if he were to do a sequel, which he's not against.
On what his future holds, Selick has certain criteria:
"I want projects that are timeless, I don’t want to be safe, I want them to break new ground stylistically and visually, and tell stories that aren’t necessarily told in Hollywood animated films, the big CG films."
On the benefits of Wendell & Wild being released on Netflix, Selick declared:
"The best thing about Netflix to me, is that you have an audience around the whole world and you’re going to find fans around the world. I think that for all the downside of the Internet, the upside is that you can find your allies. They don’t have to live in the town you’re in. Online you have your groups and they’re strong connections. So, I hope that [Wendell & Wild] stirs up a lot of chatter and discussion and so forth and a desire to see more."
Wendell & Wild Synopsis
From the delightfully wicked minds of Henry Selick and Jordan Peele, comes Wendell & Wild, an animated tale about scheming demon brothers Wendell (Keegan-Michael Key) and Wild (Peele) who enlist the aid of Kat - a tough teen with a load of guilt - to summon them to the Land of the Living. But what Kat demands in return leads to a brilliantly bizarre and comedic adventure like no other, an animated fantasy that defies the law of life and death.
Check out our full interview with director Henry Selick as well.
Wendell & Wild debuts exclusively on Netflix on October 28th, 2022.