Ever since Laika Studios made Corpse Bride and Coraline, the team has been focused on exploring fantastical worlds with lots of heart and plenty of laughs, in a very Neil Gaiman fashion. That's no bad thing. That tradition appears to continue with The Boxtrolls, which adapts Alan Snow’s book Here Be Monsters. The first teaser trailer is up at Apple.
Since the film itself is not due until September next year, this is a quick introduction to the movie’s world. We meet the Boxtrolls, monsters who live underneath the charming streets of Cheesebridge, and who crawl out of the sewers at night to steal what the townspeople hold most dear: their children and their cheeses.
At least, that’s the legend the townspeople have always believed. In truth, the creatures are a community of lovable oddballs who are raising as one of their own an abandoned and orphaned human boy named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead Wright). When the Boxtrolls are targeted by a villainous exterminator who is bent on eradicating them, Eggs must venture aboveground to save them, where he teams with an adventurous young girl to save not only the Boxtrolls but also the soul of Cheesebridge.
With Elle Fanning, Simon Pegg, Toni Collette, Ben Kingsley, Nick Frost, Jared Harris, Richard Ayoade and Tracy Morgan among the voice talent here, The Boxtrolls certainly looks promising, and the teaser has us wanting to see more of Laika’s trademark stop-motion/CG blend. It’ll be out on September 12, 2014.