Of all the news we’ve been getting over the past few days about Batmen and Barbies, few announcements are as exciting as the one made by Laika Animation Studios about their next movie, because they’ve just tasked CEO Travis Knight with directing a gritty neo-noir stop-motion folktale called The Night Gardener.
The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Knight, who previously helmed one of the best animated films of all time® with Kubo and the Two Strings (stop reading and watch it immediately if you haven’t done so already) and the best Transformers movie since the first in Bumblebee, will direct The Night Gardener from a screenplay written by Ozark creator Bill Dubuque, which is described as “a gritty neo-noir folktale centred on a young man in rural Missouri fighting to keep his family together in the wake of a tragedy.”.
In a statement Knight said “The Night Gardener is a beautiful and timeless story that quickens the pulse as often as it breaks the heart,” adding that “Bill is a masterful storyteller. He’s crafted a lyrical world layered with complex characters, provocative ideas and keenly felt emotion. It’s gonna be one helluva movie.”
Knight is currently working on another Laika animation with Wildwood, which sounds a similarly dark tale that the director says is full of “magic, wonder, and danger”.
Let us know if you’re as excited as we are about this news by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth….
