{"id":765382,"date":"2026-09-09T20:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T20:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/765382\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T20:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T20:02:09","slug":"wildwood-to-open-afi-fest-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/765382\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Wildwood&#8217; To Open AFI Fest 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe American Film Institute said Wednesday that it has selected <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/laika\/\" id=\"auto-tag_laika\" data-tag=\"laika\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Laika<\/a>\u2018s latest stop-motion animated feature, <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/wildwood\/\" id=\"auto-tag_wildwood\" data-tag=\"wildwood\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wildwood<\/a>, as the opening-night film of <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/afi-fest\/\" id=\"auto-tag_afi-fest\" data-tag=\"afi-fest\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AFI Fest<\/a>, whose 40th edition launches in October.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe October 21 screening will mark the U.S. premiere of the pic, which will world premiere October 11 at the London Film Festival. It will\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/01\/wildwood-release-date-laika-fathom-filmnation-1236691225\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">open in theaters October 23<\/a>\u00a0via\u00a0Fathom Entertainment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tTravis Knight directs the pic penned by Chris Butler based on the Colin Meloy novel. The plot centers headstrong teenager Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), who after her baby brother is abducted by a murder of crows launches with her hapless but loyal classmate Curtis Mehlberg (Jacob Tremblay) a rescue mission into the Impassable Wilderness \u2014 an enchanted forest hidden just beyond Portland, OR.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tIt voice cast also includes Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Awkwafina, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Waits and Richard E. Grant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tKnight said it took 16 years to bring Wildwood into the the world. It is the sixth feature-length pic from his Oregon-based Laika, which has seen each of its previous five movies \u2014 Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link \u2014 nominated for the Animated Feature Oscar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t\u201cAFI is honored to celebrate Wildwood as the Opening Night Film of the 40th annual AFI Fest,\u201d said Bob Gazzale, AFI President &amp; CEO. \u201cAt a time when the world needs artistic inspiration more than ever, Wildwood comes to the rescue by inviting audiences to a hand-crafted, endlessly imaginative world that both dazzles and delights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tAFI Fest, which this year runs October 21-25 at the TCL Chinese Theatres, usually lines up several buzzy award-season pics for its run. It will reveal this year\u2019s full lineup September 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The American Film Institute said Wednesday that it has selected Laika\u2018s latest stop-motion animated feature, Wildwood, as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[252764,96,97205,2839,56,54,55,97207],"class_list":["post-765382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-afi-fest","tag-entertainment","tag-laika","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildwood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}