Pick any Laika film – from Coraline and Kubo And The Two Strings, to Missing Link – and you’re guaranteed a slew of great characters, both of the friend and foe variety. And with Wildwood, their ambitious new fantasy epic, the animation studio is presenting a world teeming not just with wildlife, but a host of human heroes and villains too. The film sends our protagonist Prue on a desperate mission into the thickets of an enchanted Oregon forest to save her little brother Mac, with all kinds of complex characters awaiting her in there.
Including Alexandra, a morally-compromised antagonist who’s far from a straight-up bad guy. “When we meet her at the very beginning of the movie, she’s not a villain at all, and you see how tragedy has completely upended her life and is the catalyst for everything that happens in the story after that,” director Travis Knight tells Empire in our special 16-page bonus Wildwood magazine, created in partnership with Laika. Alexandra is, he hints, compelled by the most human of emotions. “Grief can propel us to do terrible things,” Knight says. “It can propel us to do amazing things, perform amazing acts of healing and heroism, but it can also take you down a darker road.”
Also swept up in Alexandra’s plans is Brendan, aka the Bandit King – a resident of the Ancients’ Grove, his ancestral homeland where a great civilisation once fell, which Alexandra has in her sights. “Brendan is Alexandra’s true foil in the story,” says Laika stalwart Chris Butler, who wrote Wildwood’s screenplay. “He’s the one who’s holding back Alexandra’s aggressive expansion in the woods. He is the thorn in her side. She has plans for the entire woods, and it’s constantly Brendan and his bandits who are getting in her way.” Get ready for a whole wild world out there.
Read more about Prue, Alexandra, the Bandit King and more in Empire’s bonus Wildwood magazine, created in partnership with Laika – which comes bundled with the Rings Of Power Season 3 issue, on sale Thursday July 30. Head to empireonline.com/wildwood for more Wildwood, and find the film in cinemas from October 23.
