In most cases, when a director of a very famous and revered film puts out a new movie, it’s a big deal. If their previous movie was a huge hit, it’s almost a guarantee that their new one will do well at the box office just from anticipation alone. One would think that if a person directed something that had as much cultural capital asThe Nightmare Before ChristmasorCoraline, their next film would be widely talked about with just as much excitement. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case for Henry Selick andWendell & Wild, his newest movie.
Wendell & Wildwas released on Netflix in October, and was met with very little fanfare. There was little promotion for it, and neither the public nor the internet seemed to acknowledge its existence as much as one might think they would. It’s not a bad film, either, and is certainly deserving of a lot more attention than it got.Wendell & Wildhas an important story to tell, and the amount of work that goes intoa stop-motion animated filmis grounds enough for it to deserve to be seen and appreciated by as many eyes as possible.
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Wendell & Wildfollows the story of a teenager named Kat (voiced byLyric Ross fromThis Is Us) who is enlisted into summoning two demons - Wendell and Wild (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele respectively) into the land of the living. That’s a pretty basic overview of the plot, as there is a lot that goes on in this film. It’s a story about family, and grief, and the prison-industrial complex, and a system that preys on vulnerable, at-risk teenagers. Oh, and the underworld, of course.
This film tackles so many big ideas that the plot can get a little muddled, what with so much going on at once. However, all of those threads come together in the end in a way that’s very satisfying, and it’s clear that the movie knew exactly what story it wanted to tell, it just takes a minute to get there. This is part children’s movie (though it definitely seems more geared towards tweens and teenagers than really little kids),part social commentary, and it does a great job of weaving those things together.
The animation is beautiful, as is usually the case with stop-motion animation. The amount oftime and effort that goes into the art formjust means that it’s so much more likely that the audience will appreciate and notice the animation itself, knowing how hard it is to pull off well. There are a lot of stylistic choices that are cool to see as well, such as how Wendell and Wild’s character models look modeled after 2D when they’re in the underworld, but look more 3D and rounded when they come into the world of the living. That kind of attention to detail is what made people fall in love with the animation inCoralineandTheNightmare Before Christmas.
Wendell and Wildis alsovery diverse, with most of the main cast being comprised of people of color, particularly Black actors. There is also a trans character, and their character is not solely defined by this part of their identity, which is nice to see in the media. With the messaging and the diverse cast and creative team, this has the makings of being a big hit, especially with Henry Selick’s notoriety from his past films behind it. So why didn’t it blow up as much as it should have?
For one thing, there are probably a lot of people who don’t know Henry Selick by name, even if they are familiar with a lot of his work. Mostpeople think Tim Burton directedThe Nightmare Before Christmas(even though he was the producer), and in general, it’s rare that directors of animated movies are known as much as their live-action counterparts might be. It’s usually the studio that gets the credit rather than the individual directors in the animated industry - most people refer to a movie as a Disney or Ghibli or Laika movie rather than knowing who directed each individual one.
There’s also a problem with streaming releases where they don’t get as much promotion as a traditional theatrical one. Even though they should do better in theory because people are able to watch from the comfort of their homes much more easily than trekking down to the theater, it seems likestreaming services don’t promote their filmsas much as they should. So many movies get released and fly under the radar of every other thing that gets released onto a streaming service at one time.
If Netflix wants its movies to succeed, they need to put some time and money behind its promotion strategies. There’s no reason that Henry Selick’s newest movie after 13 years should have flown under the radar as much as it did. The story is fairly solid (if a bit dense at first), and the idea is slightly macabre and whimsical, which is exactly what madeCoralineandNightmarehuge hits.Wendell & Wilddeserved just as much notoriety as those two movies got, it just seems like the circumstances it was birthed out of didn’t give it the chance. This kind of stop-motion animation should be supported as much as possible, because every film that uses it is a pure labor of love, which is the kind of dedication that everyone should be able to appreciate.
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