Henry Selick is once again in possession of the rights to his beloved project and has the ambition to make it work.
Henry Selick is one of the undisputed masters of stop motion. Of The Nightmare Before Christmas at Coraline, there are few creators who have created a stop motion marvel as famous as him. While promoting his latest film, Wendell & Wild, Selick revealed that he managed to get the rights to one of his passion projects back from Disney, which is no small feat considering how Disney protects all of his intellectual property.
While talking to Double toasted, Selick revealed the news and said that if his new movie is a hit, “maybe I’ll resurrect The King of Shadows
“It would be different, it would be like my original story, which they claimed to like, but then changed everything.”
“In my mind, it was kind of like a darker tone Dumbo. You know, Dumbo we laugh at his big ears… well he was a kid with deformed hands and maybe they’re not as cute as big ears and that was their problem but that’s a really messed up thing . He’s going to be taught by a living shadow girl how to use those hands to not only create the biggest hand shadows in the world, but also hand shadows that can come to life. I thought it was a good story and I still think it is.
So do we, because it happens and we’re probably not alone.
Disney’s interference in the project led to its downfall, then-Pixar chief John Lasseter reportedly wanted to repeatedly increase the budget and ideas, while Disney himself was wary of the dark tone of the movie, a problem we’ve seen play out. and again and again with the studio over the years. To his credit, Selick would stick to his guns and the development of the project would eventually stall.
With the news surfacing that the rights are once again with Selick, we can’t wait to see him fulfill his ambitions for the project and it will be interesting to see who he chooses to partner with (is it possible the director will reforge a partnership with Laika, perhaps?). You can support Selick’s ambitions by checking out Wendell and savage on Netflix, where the film is available now.
Image: Big Stock
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