Sixteen Years in the Making: Colin Meloy on Laika's 'Wildwood'

Colin Meloy's fantasy novel 'Wildwood' took 16 years to reach the screen — and at 132 minutes, Laika's adaptation is now the longest stop-motion film ever made. The Decemberists frontman says the wait paid off.

Travis Knight directed the film for the Portland-based studio Laika, fresh off its stop-motion hit 'Coraline.' Laika optioned the book in 2010, when Meloy had only written about a third of the draft and HarperCollins had just acquired it. He and his wife, illustrator Carson Ellis, were wary of a film deal.

"We just imagined that any movie would inevitably eclipse the book," Meloy, 52, said. "So we were like, 'Please, can it just be a book for a little bit, and then the movie comes out?' And he was like, 'Don't worry about it. It's going to take a very long time.'"

Knight was right. Meloy recalls the director's promise: "Travis did say it was going to be his masterpiece. But I was like, 'Oh yeah, I'm sure you tell that to everybody.'" He adds, laughing: "It was cool to see him make good on that."

What's the story?

The film follows Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a strong-willed Portland teenager whose brother is carried off by a murder of crows. With her schoolmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), she ventures into the forbidden Impassable Forest, a world caught in a civil war. The cast includes Carey Mulligan as a vengeful governess, Mahershala Ali as the Bandit King and an entire kingdom of talking animals — Tom Waits may or may not voice a coyote soldier.

Critics have compared 'Wildwood' to 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Chronicles of Narnia,' which fits Meloy's own reading as a bookish kid in Helena, Montana, from fifth to eighth grade. He cites Ray Bradbury, Lloyd Alexander, Ursula K. Le Guin and Stephen King as favorites. "You want to write the book that you would've wanted to read as a kid," he says.

How did it start?

The idea was born more than 25 years ago, around 2000, when Meloy and Ellis lived in a Southeast Portland warehouse. They had met at the University of Montana and bonded over folklore. "Honestly, it was a pastime, something to do [so] that we could hang out together," he says. "I would write, and she would draw."

The film celebrates 2010s Portland — Powell's Books, Voodoo Doughnut, specialty coffee, even a cameo from Fred Armisen's Portlandia cyclist Spyke. "That tide has definitely ebbed," Meloy says of the city. "So it's cool to give the celebration of the city to the world."

He and Ellis got secret animated cameos: he busks on the street, she sells artwork. Laika tried to keep it quiet, but slips happened — "They would be like, 'Hey, I animated you today!'"

What about the music?

Meloy wrote several new songs and sings the end-credit anthem "The Better Part of Bravery." His first 2023 attempt didn't satisfy Knight. Then, while showing his and Ellis's 13-year-old son the 1986 film 'Highlander,' Meloy learned Brian May wrote "Who Wants to Live Forever" only after seeing the film. "This light bulb went off," he says. He watched an early cut and wrote the song within days: "I have Brian May to thank for that song."

Next spring marks 25 years since the Decemberists' debut, 'Castaways and Cutouts,' but Meloy resists an anniversary tour — "more just me needing variety on tour." A follow-up to 2024's 'As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again' won't come soon. He's focused on the novel 'Casadia' and the Arthurian duology 'Mordred Rex' and 'Kestrel Magus.' "I am squarely in book world," he says. "It's my happy place."

Laika could still adapt 'Under Wildwood' (2012) and 'Wildwood Imperium' (2014), though Meloy notes stop-motion is slow and labor-intensive. For now, he's proud of what the studio built: people "making tiny clothes or machining armatures, and the patience to film two seconds over the course of a couple weeks. It's been a real boon to the Portland creative community. I'm thrilled."