Laika Entertainment has announced that their 3D stop-motion/CGI animated feature film, “The Boxtrolls,” is scheduled for a release date of Sept. 26, 2014. That date sounds like they are going for another Oscar nomination like they received for the Neil Gaiman fairy tale “Coraline” (2009) and for last year’s “ParaNorman.”
“The Boxtrolls” is based on Alan Snow’s fantasy novel “Here Be Monsters: An Adventure Involving Magic, Trolls, and Other Creatures.” “The Boxtrolls” takes place in the English town of Cheesebridge during the Victorian era. The people of Cheesebridge are not very nice, and are obsessed with money, social standing, and really stinky cheese. The sewers under the city are inhabited by much hated Boxtrolls who are said to steal the town’s most precious possessions: their children and their cheese! It turns out that the Boxtrolls are actually kind creatures who are so shy that they wear cardboard boxes like turtle shells. The social-climbing exterminator, Archibald Snatcher, is out to destroy the Boxtrolls in order to get into Cheesebridge high society. Eggs, the Boxtroll’s human foster child, sets out to save his friends in this comedy/adventure.
According to Laika’s President & CEO Travis Knight, “The Boxtrolls is a visually dazzling mash-up of gripping detective story, absurdist comedy, and steampunk adventure with a surprisingly wholesome heart. It’s Dickens by way of Monty Python… But at its core, like all LAIKA films, The Boxtrolls is a moving and human story with timelessness and powerful emotional resonance.”
“The Boxtrolls” is directed by Graham Annable (story animator for “Coraline” and “ParaNorman”) and Anthony Stacchi (“Open Season”), and stars Tracy Morgan, Simon Pegg, Elle Fanning, Jared Harris, Toni Collette, and Oscar winner Ben Kingsley.
To learn more about “The Boxtrolls,” read “Here Be Monsters” (The Ratbridge Chronicles), available at public libraries, bookstores, and Amazon.com. Follow “The Boxtrolls” on Facebook.
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