Stop-motion lovers, we come bearing news that we think you'll like very much! Or perhaps that should be LAIKA very much. Yes folks, the beloved Oregon based animation outfit have today announced that they've acquired the rights to make an animated adaptation of Susanna Clarke's NYT best-selling fantasy novel Piranesi. And what's more, Travis Knight — the studio's president, CEO, and Kubo And The Two Strings director — is set to helm the feature.
"Piranesi is a treasure, and very dear to me," said Knight in a statement accompanying the film's announcement. "As a filmmaker, I can scarcely imagine a more joyful experience than wandering through the worlds Susanna dreamed into being. She’s one of my all-time favorite authors, and with Piranesi, Susanna has created a beautiful, devastating and ultimately life-affirming work of art. I’m humbled that she chose LAIKA as her home.”
Clarke's second novel following her 2004 debut Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which itself was successfully adapted into a BAFTA-nominated BBC miniseries in 2015, Piranesi is a beguiling work of fantasy set in a dream-like alternate reality — a perfect fit then for the studio who brought us Coraline! Here's the official synopsis: "Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls, an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house — a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known."
With LAIKA's next stop-motion Wildwood set to finally release in 2025 after more than a decade in development, and future projects including live-action lethal hitman joint Seventeen and neo-noir animation The Night Gardener already in development too, Piranesi is the latest in a long line of exciting releases on the studio's horizon. And after having had each of their previous five features nominated for an Oscar, could Piranesi be the one to finally bring LAIKA Oscar glory? Will Wildwood get there first? We'll just have to wait and see...