Laika’s Travis Knight To Direct Stop-Motion Film ‘The Night Gardener’ Written By ‘Ozark’s Bill Dubuque

Matt Grobar
·2 min read
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Laika’s CEO and President Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) is gearing up to direct the stop-motion animated feature The Night Gardener, written by Ozark co-creator Bill Dubuque, for his storied Hillsboro, Oregon studio. (Check out a film still unveiled by Laika below.)

The film based on Dubuque’s original idea is billed as a gritty neo-noir folktale centered on a young man in rural Missouri, who’s fighting to keep his family together in the wake of a tragedy. Pic will paint an unflinching portrait of sacrifice, self-reliance and revenge. News of the new Laika film comes with the studio currently in production on Wildwood, the first film set in its hometown of Portland, Oregon. Knight is directing the animated film, based on the bestselling fantasy novel written by Colin Meloy—the multi-hyphenate best known as the lead singer and songwriter for the rock group The Decemberists.

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“The Night Gardener is a beautiful and timeless story that quickens the pulse as often as it breaks the heart,” said Knight. “Bill is a masterful storyteller. He’s crafted a lyrical world layered with complex characters, provocative ideas, and keenly felt emotion. It’s gonna be one helluva movie.”

“I’m delighted that Travis Knight saw in The Night Gardener a story worthy of the time intensive process and collective talent of LAIKA’s in-house artisans,” added Dubuque. “LAIKA’s creativity and dedication to detail is, in my opinion, as close as one can come to conjuring storytelling magic.”

Knight founded Laika in 2005, seeing each of the studio’s five features to date—Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014), Kubo (2016) and Missing Link (2019)—land an Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature. In addition to Kubo and Wildwood, Knight directed Bumblebee for Paramount Pictures. Also in the works at his studio is its first live-action film—an adaptation of John Brownlow’s upcoming debut novel, Seventeen.

Dubuque co-wrote the Warner Bros. feature The Judge starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall, for which the latter earned a Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also penned The Accountant, starring Ben Affleck, and is the co-creator, writer and executive producer of Netflix’ hit show Ozark, which will unveil its final set of episodes on April 29. Prior to his career in screenwriting, Dubuque worked as a headhunter for over a decade, seeing that experience come in handy while writing the feature A Family Man, starring Gerard Butler and Willem Dafoe.

Knight is represented by CAA; Dubuque by Zero Gravity Management, CAA and Bloom Hergott Diemer.

. - Credit: Laika
. - Credit: Laika

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