Coraline director Henry Selick has officially unveiled his next stop-motion animated project, after previously directing 2022’s horror comedy Wendell & Wild. The said movie will be based on another one of Neil Gaiman’s literary works in the form of his 2013 novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

During a recent appearance at the Annecy Animation Festival, Selick confirmed that he will once again reunite with Gaiman for the upcoming film adaptation of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which he praised as the British author’s “crowning achievement.” Selick described the project as an “almost sequel” to his popular coming-of-age dark fantasy Coraline, which would definitely delight fans of the 2009 cult classic who have long wanted to get a sequel. “Instead of a child going to this other world with a monstrous mother, it’s a monstrous mother who comes into our world to wreak havoc on a kid’s life,” Selick said as he teased the upcoming movie’s story.

According to Variety, Selick’s upcoming The Ocean at the End of the Lane movie already has a 35-page treatment along with a number of artwork and concept designs. At the moment, the acclaimed filmmaker has been shopping the project around, with ShadowMachine, the studio behind Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, as one of its interested potential buyers. Besides Coraline, Selick is also best known for his directorial work on 1993’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, and 1996’s James and the Giant Peach, which were both produced by Tim Burton.

The official book synopsis for Gaiman’s bestselling novel reads, “A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse where she once lived, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.”

Coraline Celebrates Its 15th Anniversary

Selick’s new project announcement also comes ahead of the upcoming 15th anniversary celebration of Coraline’s theatrical release. To honor the beloved stop-motion animated movie, Laika Studios will be releasing the Remastered 3D version of the 2009 movie in theaters worldwide starting on Aug. 15 until Aug. 22. The film was written and directed by Selick, based on Gaiman’s novella of the same name. It featured the voices of Dakota Fanning, Ian McShane, Keith David, Jennifer Saunders, Teri Hatcher, Dawn French and more. The story was about a young girl who discovers a mysterious door in her new home. This door leads her to an alternate but identical reality of her world, where people have buttons for eyes.

At the time of writing, there is still no distributor, cast, and release date attached to Selick’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane movie yet.

Source: Variety