One of the year’s earliest billion-dollar hits was Toy Story 5. Considered a return to form for Pixar’s most important franchise, the return of Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), and the rest of the gang scored an impressive $1.1 billion during an extended theatrical run and currently flies the flag as the biggest animated film of 2026 so far. Hoping to change that is the return of a major player in the animation world, Laika, who hasn’t released a film in theaters for seven long years.
This October, the team behind Missing Link, Coraline, and ParaNorman are back with their most ambitious and deliciously detailed stop-motion adventure yet: Wildwood. The film is based on the Colin Meloy-written and Carson Ellis-illustrated children’s fantasy novel, which Laika has owned the rights to since just weeks after it was released in 2011, and they had worked on the book’s trailer. 15 years have now passed, and Laika has finally put the finishing touches on what promises to be the studio’s most visually immersive viewing experience yet.
That’s certainly if the brand-new trailer is anything to go by, which you can watch in full below. Giving fans their most detailed glimpse yet at this epic fantasy world, each frame of the trailer is bursting with the vibrant, gothic life of hand-crafted excellence, the sort of which is fighting the vital fight for artistic expression in the age of AI. A synopsis for the film reads, “A girl’s desperate quest to save her baby brother unfolds into a spectacular, high-stakes adventure through a forbidden forest full of enchanted creatures, endearing allies, and formidable adversaries–where an entire hidden realm hangs in the balance.”
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring
Every great horror franchise is one very specific fear wearing a mask. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes certain nobody believes you. One is already inside your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family right now. Eight questions decide which of them was built for you.
😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)
🧸Chucky(Child’s Play)
📞Scream(Ghostface)
🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)
01
What actually frightens you, when you are honest about it? Every horror franchise is one fear, dressed up and handed a knife.
02
It is very late and you are alone. What do you do? Everybody has a ritual for this. Yours says more than you think.
03
The first sign arrives. How do you react to it? There is always a warning. There is usually nobody listening.
04
How much of this do you think is your own fault? The best horror always leaves that question slightly open.
05
What would actually keep you alive in a horror film? Somebody always survives. It is rarely the person you expect.
06
Who do you want in the room with you? Almost nobody survives a horror film completely alone.
07
It is over. What do you carry out of it? Horror never really ends at the credits. It just stops filming.
08
The lights go off tonight. Which thought finds you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.
The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…
Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.
A Nightmare on Elm Street · Since 1984
Elm Street
Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.
Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
You are the person who lies awake running through it again. Your own mind is where this
starts and where it does the damage.
These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.
Child’s Play · Chucky · Since 1988
Chucky
Your nightmare is not really the thing itself. It is the face of
the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.
Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
You know the specific loneliness of being right while everyone around you is being
reasonable at you.
The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
have met those adults.
By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.
Scream · Ghostface · Since 1996
Scream
Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.
Scream is the only one of these where the monster takes the mask off and turns out to be
somebody who was at the party.
You watch people. You notice the small wrong notes in a conversation, and you have never
entirely been able to switch that off.
The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.
The Conjuring · The Warren Files · Since 2013
The Conjuring
Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the fact that you are the one who moved them all here.
The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
Your fear is protective rather than personal. What frightens you is failing somebody,
not being hurt yourself.
This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
standing in the hallway.
‘Wildwood’ Boasts an Impressive Cast
An array of stars, both veteran and up-and-coming, have been assembled to tackle this epic stop-motion project, led by Peyton Elizabeth Lee as the voice of the story’s protagonist, Prue McKeel. She has been joined in the recording booth by the likes of Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Angela Bassett, Richard E. Grant, Amandla Stenberg, Awkwafina, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Blythe Danner, Tom Waits, and two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali. The film is the latest from director Travis Knight, who debuted the underrated Masters of the Universe earlier this year, alongside a script by his regular partner, Chris Butler.
Wildwood opens in theaters on October 23, 2026. Check out the new trailer and stay tuned to Collider for more.
