Laika’s Matt Levin on Launching Live-Action and Taking the Company Into Its ‘New Chapter’ With Lord and Miller, Lulu Wang and More

Filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Lulu Wang and Jon Spaihts have one thing in common — they’ve all got projects lined up at Laika’s live-action division.

For 20 years, Laika has been synonymous with stop-motion projects, creating animated features such as “ParaNorman,” “Coraline” and “Kubo and the Two Strings,” but 2023 heralded a new change for the studio, the move into live action.

Matt Levin, president of Laika’s live-action film and series division, joined the Oregon-based studio in 2023 to build on its legacy and contribute to this next chapter. “It’s all coming from this very pure place of wanting to tell stories that are pushing boundaries and emotionally resonant and timeless, and advancing the craft and advancing the medium in some way,” Levin says.

The studio first announced plans back in 2021 after acquiring rights to adapt John Brownlow’s novel “Seventeen” for the big screen. Back then, Laika president and CEO Travis Knight said, “For the past 15 years, Laika has been committed to making movies that matter. Across mediums and genres, our studio has fused art, craft and technology in service of bold, distinctive and enduring stories. With ‘Seventeen,’ Laika is taking that philosophy in an exciting new direction.”

Production is ramping up along the live-action pipeline. As of now, there are no release dates for its live-action productions, but Spaihts is set to make his directorial debut with an untitled sci-fi thriller about a woman investigating a mystery that took place during a week she cannot remember. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are adapting and directing a live-action film based on the novel “Atmosphere” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. And Wang is on board to adapt and direct “Audition,” the novel by Katie Kitamura.

Levin explains, there’s a formula to the projects they get behind, and it remains the same as Knight’s messaging: “We’re looking for things that are bold, emotional and inventive.”

From meticulous crafting of its puppets to the painstaking detail in its production design, the team integrates new technologies and innovations into the century-old technique of stop-motion animation. It’s something the studio prides itself on and hopes to thread into its live-action films. “That’s going to be a big part of how we approach the live-action space as well, a focus on craft, artistry and championing strong creative voices and creative authorship,” Levin says.

The films may vary in genre and story, but Levin hopes audiences “can feel the through line. All of them are bold, emotional, inventive in some way.”

As for the filmmakers, Levin says the division is “building its tribe.” That means finding the people who share the same values. “When we find them and there’s a story that they want to tell that really resonates with us, we’re off to the races. I don’t think it’s much more complicated than that, but it really does come down to finding people who really have that shared sense of value and in the types of stories they want to tell and how they want to tell them.”

Brian Duffield, who will write and direct “Crumble” with Lord and Miller producing, says, “I’ll never forget seeing ‘Coraline’ on opening night at the AMC Burbank 16 and wondering who these wonderful new geniuses were. I can’t wait to make a movie with them and hopefully live up to their banner, and I couldn’t be more excited to get to go on a new adventure with my friends at Lord Miller.”

Lord and Miller add, “We have long been fans of Laika and Travis Knight’s groundbreaking work in animation and could not be more excited to join forces with them in live action.” It’s a sentiment shared by all the other filmmakers who are joining the Laika “tribe.”

Looking ahead, Levin feels the “real sense of responsibility in helping to take the company into this next chapter.” He adds, “You want to do justice to all the incredible work that’s come before. We’re going to be very curated and selective, and hopefully that’s reflected in some of the projects we’ve announced so far.”