Coraline (film)

Coraline
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Henry Selick
Screenplay by	Henry Selick
Based on	Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Produced by	Bill Mechanic Claire Jennings Henry Selick Mary Sandell
Starring	Dakota Fanning Teri Hatcher Jennifer Saunders Dawn French Ian McShane
Cinematography	Pete Kozachik
Edited by	Christopher Murrie Ronald Sanders
Music by	Bruno Coulais
Production companies	Laika Pandemonium Films
Distributed by	Focus Features
Release dates	February 5, 2009 (2009-02-05) (Portland International Film Festival)[1] February 6, 2009 (2009-02-06) (United States)
Running time	100 minutes[2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60 million[3][4]
Box office	$131.8 million[3]

Coraline is a 2009 American stop-motion animated dark fantasy film written and directed by Henry Selick, based on Neil Gaiman's novella of the same name.^[5] Produced by Laika, as the studio's first feature film,^[6] it features the voice talents of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., and Ian McShane. The musical score is by Bruno Coulais. The film tells the story of its eponymous character discovering an idealized alternate universe behind a secret door in her new home, unaware that it contains something dark and sinister.

Just as Gaiman was finishing his novella in 2002, he met Selick and invited him to make a film adaptation, as Gaiman was a fan of Selick's other stop-motion projects, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996). When Selick thought that a direct adaptation would lead to "maybe a 47-minute movie", the screenplay was expanded. Looking for a design different from that of most animation, Selick discovered the work of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi and invited him to become the concept artist. His biggest influences were on the color palette, which was muted in the real world and more colorful in the Other World, as in The Wizard of Oz. To capture stereoscopy for the 3D release, the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions. Production of the stop-motion animation feature took place at a warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon.

The film was theatrically released in the United States on February 6, 2009, by Focus Features after a world premiere at the Portland International Film Festival on February 5,^[7] and received critical acclaim. It grossed $16.85 million during its opening weekend, ranking third at the box office,^[8] and by the end of its run had grossed over $124 million worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time after Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The film won Annie Awards for Best Music in an Animated Feature Production, Best Character Design in an Animated Feature Production and Best Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. It has developed a cult following in the years since its release and is considered one of the greatest animated films of all time. With Coraline, Laika became the first company to make a feature-length film using replacement faces made by a 3D printer.^[9]