Coraline (film)

This article is about the film adaptation. For other uses, see Coraline (disambiguation).

Coraline
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Henry Selick
Produced by	Henry Selick Claire Jennings
Screenplay by	Henry Selick
Based on	Coraline: Neil Gaiman
Starring	Dakota Fanning Teri Hatcher Jennifer Saunders Dawn French John Hodgman Ian McShane
Music by	Bruno Coulais
Cinematography	Pete Kozachik
Editing by	Christopher Murrie
Studio	Laika Pandemonium
Distributed by	Focus Features
Release date(s)	February 6, 2009 (2009-02-06)
Running time	100 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60,000,000[2]
Box office	$124,596,398[2]

Coraline is a 2009 stop-motion 3D fantasy/horror children's film based on Neil Gaiman's 2002 novel of the same name. It was produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features. Written and directed by Henry Selick, it was released widely in US theaters on February 6, 2009, after a world premiere at the Portland International Film Festival. The film was made with Gaiman's approval and cooperation.^[3]

The film made $16.85 million during opening weekend, ranking third at the box office.^[4] As of September 2009, the film has grossed over $120 million worldwide. Coraline won the Annie Awards for best music, character design, and production design and received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Animated Feature.

Plot

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) moves from Pontiac, Michigan with her mother (Teri Hatcher) and father (John Hodgman) move to the Pink Palace Apartments in Ashland, Oregon: an old house subdivided into three residences. With her parents frantically working on a gardening catalog in order to make ends meet and paying little attention to her, Coraline begins to feel neglected. While exploring the grounds, she meets Wyborn Lovat (Robert Bailey, Jr.), the talkative, nervous grandson of the landlady. Wyborn finds a doll that is an exact replica of Coraline and gives it to her. Back in the house, Coraline finds an oddly small door that has been covered over with wallpaper. She asks her mother to unlock it, only to find a brick wall behind it.

That night, Coraline is awakened by the sound of a jerboa and follows it to the small door. She discovers that the brick wall has disappeared, replaced by a long corridor to another door. At the other end, Coraline finds herself in the "Other World", which is inhabited by her "Other Mother" and "Other Father" (doppelgängers of her parents, except for black buttons in place of their eyes). In sharp contrast to her real parents, the Others are attentive to Coraline. She decides to stay the night in the Other World, but when she wakes the next morning, she finds herself back in her bed in the real world.

The next day, Coraline tries to tell her parents what happened, but they think she has just had an elaborate dream. She visits the other residents of the Pink Palace, the eccentric Russian acrobat Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane) and retired English actresses Miss Spink (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Forcible (Dawn French), who warns Coraline she is in danger. She also runs into Wybie, who tells her that his grandmother's twin sister had found a doll that looked exactly like her sister shortly before she disappeared, never to be seen again.

Coraline continues to go to the Other World at night and is entertained by the Other versions of her neighbors, including the Other Wybie, who has been rendered mute by the Other Mother; the Other Mr. Bobinsky, who has an amazing professional mouse circus; and the Other Spink and Forcible, who entertain Coraline with an elaborate Broadway-like show. During one visit, Coraline encounters a black cat from her own world (Keith David), who has the ability to talk in the Other World. He warns Coraline of the dangers of the place, but Coraline pays him no mind.

That evening, the Other Mother invites Coraline to stay in the Other World forever. Coraline is eager to accept until she is told she must have buttons sewn on her eyes. She refuses and demands to be returned home. This angers the Other Mother, who transforms into a taller, malevolent version of herself and thrusts Coraline through a mirror into a small room. There, Coraline meets the ghosts of three children who believed the Other Mother and lost their eyes and souls to her. She promises them she will find their eyes so their souls can be freed. The Other Wyborn helps Coraline escape home, but Coraline finds her parents have disappeared. Coraline tries to tell Wyborn about the Other Mother and Other World, but he calls her crazy and leaves. That same night, the cat wakes her and shows her, via a magical mirror, that her parents have been kidnapped by the Other Mother. With no other choice but to return to the Other World, equipped with a seeing stone given to her by Spink and Forcible, Coraline sets out to free the ghost children and rescue her parents.

On the advice of the cat, Coraline challenges the Other Mother to a game, since she never turns down a good game. If she can find her parents and the eyes of the ghost children, everyone goes free; if she loses, she will stay in the Other World forever and have buttons sewn into her eyes. With the help of her seeing eye stone, the black cat, and the Other Father, Coraline outwits the guardians of the children's eyes. One eye is hidden as a part of a gardening machine in an enchanted garden, there she dodges the Other Father to get it, the second as the Other Spink and Forcible's ring which she fights the Other Spink and Forcible for, and the last as a toy ball in the Other Bobinsky's circus where she endures the wrath of Other Bobinski's rats as she tries to get the last eye. She almost loses the last eye after being thrown from Other Bobinski's collapsing balcony, luckily, the cat retrieves it for her. As she retrieves each eye, part of the Other World slowly disintegrates.

Finally she goes inside to find her parents, and confronts the Other Mother in her sitting room; Coraline presents the ghost eyes to the Other Mother, but refuses to hand them over until she finds her parents. forewarned that the Other Mother will never let her leave regardless of the game’s outcome, Coraline tricks her into opening the door to the real world, telling her that she is certain that her parents are behind it. As the Other Mother goes to open the door, the cat finds Coraline's parents trapped inside a snow globe on the fireplace mantle. As the Other Mother prepares to sew buttons over Coraline's eyes and keep her forever, Coraline throws the cat at the Other Mother, and the struggle the cat claws her button eyes off, blinding her. Furious, the Other Mother dissamsembles the Other Pink Palace completeky, revealing it to be a giant spider web; the cat quickly flees, and the Other Mother blindly sttempts to stop Coraline from escaping. Coraline barely manages to elude her and, with the help of the ghost children, slams the door to the Other World on the Other Mother's now-mechanical hand, severing it. Coraline runs back through the portal to the real world as the Other Mother cries out, begging her not to leave and banging on the door, causing it to move forward and collide with the door to the real world. Coraline locks the door in the real world and finds that her parents are free and safe with no memory of the experience.

The next night, Coraline is visited by the ghost children one last time. They tell her she is still in danger while she has the door key. To keep the Other Mother from ever kidnapping another child, Coraline decides to drop the key down a well located on the property. The Other Mother's severed hand stalks and attacks Coraline. Wyborn arrives in time to save her and smash the hand. They throw the pieces and the key into the well and cover it.

With their catalog complete, Coraline's parents are finally able to spend time with her and hold a garden party for her and the neighbors, including Wyborne's elderly grandmother (Carolyn Crawford). Coraline informs the grandmother she has something to tell her about her lost sister.

Cast

Coraline listens to the ghost children in the Other Mother's mirror cell.

• Dakota Fanning as Coraline Jones, a brave, clever, curious and self-proclaimed 11-year-old explorer. She is aggravated by crazy adults, not being taken seriously, and people constantly mistaking her name for Caroline. Neil Gaiman describes her as "full of 'vim' and 'spunk' and all those wonderful old-fashioned words."^{[citation needed]}

• Teri Hatcher as Mel Jones/Other Mother (The Beldam). Coraline's busy mother. In the movie, Mel has a neck brace around her neck, most likely from the truck crash Coraline mentioned; the Other Mother has a turtleneck jumper instead. Mel is a writer working on a gardening catalog. She loves her daughter, but is very busy and doesn't always give her the attention that Coraline thinks she needs. The Other Mother is the creator of the other world and its inhabitants. Teri Hatcher describes Other Mother as the seemingly "perfect mom, because she's a perfect cook and has the perfect answer to every question, and later on she becomes quite monstrous."^{[citation needed]} Her true form is a spider-like witch, with a bony face and hands fashioned from sewing needles. The three ghost children refer to her as "the beldam", an archaic word meaning "hag" or "witch".

• John Hodgman as Charlie Jones, Coraline's father, and the Other Father. John Linnell provides the character's singing voice. John Hodgman described him as "the kind of guy who walks around a banana peel and falls into a manhole."^{[citation needed]} Author Neil Gaiman describes him as a man who "does that thing that parents do when they embarrass their kids and somehow think they're being cool."^{[citation needed]} The other father is a singer-pianist, as well as a gardener. He acts like the other mother's slave, showing a scared and traumatized attitude. However, he still seems to retain aspects of Coraline's real father, repeatedly stating that the Other Mother is forcing him to do this and that, and that he does not want to truly hurt Coraline.

• Keith David as The Cat, a nameless black cat from Coraline's world who appears and disappears at will and has the ability to speak in the Other World. He forms a bond with Coraline and acts as her guide and mentor throughout her journey.

• Robert Bailey, Jr. as Wyborne "Wybie" Lovat, the strange, nervous 11-year-old grandson of Coraline's landlady. Wybie is a character introduced for the film adaptation so that the viewer "wouldn't have a girl walking around, occasionally talking to herself."^{[citation needed]} He wears a metallic skull mask with a three-piece turret lens as well as a handmade motorized bicycle used to patrol the woods. The Other Wybie is very sweet and has been rendered incapable of speech by the Other Mother as she thought Coraline would prefer him that way.

• Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French as Miss April Spink and Miss Miriam Forcible respectively, a pair of retired burlesque actresses. They own several Scottish Terriers (including the stuffed remains of their dead ones) and talk in theater jargon. The Other Spink and Forcible are young, beautiful, Shakespeare-quoting acrobats.

• Ian McShane as Mr. Bobinsky (his full name is Sergey Aleksandr Bobinsky, and friends call him Mr. B.), one of Coraline's neighbors. He is a blue-skinned Russian giant who once trained as a gymnast and lives on a steady diet of beets. While not explained in the film, his blue skin is due to his time as a Liquidator, for which he wears a Hero of Chernobyl medal on his "wife beater".^[5] Coraline's mother believes him to be a drunk. The Other Bobinsky is the ringmaster of a circus of rats disguised as jumping mice.

• Carolyn Crawford as Mrs. Lovat, Wybie's presumably protective grandmother and the owner of the Pink Palace Apartments. She originally grew up in the old Victorian mansion with her twin sister who mysteriously vanished because of the Other Mother. Believing that someone 'stole' her sister, Mrs. Lovat moved out of her childhood home and divided it into three apartments, which she rents. Afraid of the Beldam claiming another child, she did not allow any tenants with children to rent the apartments (for some reason she rents to Coraline and her parents, perhaps because it is illegal to discriminate against families with children in the real-world Oregon^[6]), nor does she allow Wybie to enter it.

Production

“	Coraline [was] a huge risk. But these days in animation, the safest bet is to take a risk.	”
—Henry Selick, [7]

At its peak, the film involved the efforts of 450 people,^[7] including from 30^[8] to 35^[7] animators and digital designers in the Digital Design Group (DDG) directed by Dan Casey and more than 250 technicians and designers.^[8] One crew member, Althea Crome, was hired specifically to knit miniature sweaters and other clothing for the puppet characters, sometimes using knitting needles as thin as human hair.^[7] Several students from The Art Institute of Portland were also involved in making the film.

Coraline was staged in a 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m²) warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon.^[7][8] The stage was divided into 50 lots,^[9] which played host to nearly 150 sets.^[7] Among the sets were three miniature Victorian mansions, a 42-foot (12.8 m) apple orchard, and a model of Ashland, Oregon including tiny details such as banners for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.^[8]

The film's creators used three 3D printing systems from Objet in the development and production of the film. Thousands of high-quality 3D models, ranging from facial expressions to doorknobs were printed in 3D using the Polyjet matrix systems, which enable the fast transformation of CAD (computer-aided design) drawings into high-quality 3D models. The characters of Coraline could potentially exhibit over 208,000 facial expressions.^[10]

The soundtrack for Coraline features songs composed by French composer Bruno Coulais with one, "Other Father Song," by They Might Be Giants. The Other Father's singing voice is provided by John Linnell, one of the singers from the band. They wrote ten songs for the film; when a melancholy tone was decided, all but one were cut. Coulais's score was performed by the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra and features choral pieces sung by the Children's Choir of Nice in a nonsense language.^[11] Selick mentions that the main soloist, "a young girl you hear singing in several parts of the film" is coincidentally named Coraline.^[11] Coraline won Coulais the 2009 Annie Award for best score for an animated feature.

Release

Focus Features distributed the film. Coraline appeared at Comic-Con 2007. A trailer was shown with the films Beowulf, U2 3D, Twilight, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Inkheart, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, My Bloody Valentine 3D, and The Tale of Despereaux.^{[citation needed]}

Home media

The film was released in the US on DVD and Blu-ray on July 21, 2009. A 3-D version comes with four sets of 3-D glasses—specifically the green-magenta anaglyph image.

Coraline was released in the United Kingdom on DVD and Blu-ray on October 12, 2009. A 3-D version of the film was also released on a 2-Disc Collector's Edition.

The DVD opened to first week sales of 1,036,845 and over $19 million in revenue. Total sales stand at over 2.6 million units and over $45 million in revenue.^[12]

A four disc Blu-ray 3D set which includes a stereoscopic 3D on the first Blu-ray disc and an anaglyph 3D image.

Other media

The website for Coraline involves an interactive exploration game where the player can scroll through Coraline's world. It won the 2009 Webby Award for "Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics," both by the people and the Webby organization. It was also nominated for the Webby "Movie and Film" category.^[13]

On June 16, 2008, D3 Publisher announced the release of a video game based on the film. It was developed by Papaya Studio for the Wii and PlayStation 2 and by Art Co. for Nintendo DS. It was released on January 27, 2009, close to the film's theatrical release.^[14]

The soundtrack was released digitally February 3, 2009 by E1 Music, and in stores on February 24, 2009.

Reception

Critical response

Coraline was acclaimed by critics. As of May 2009, the film has an 90% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes,^[15] and a 80 out of 100 at Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews."^[16] David Edelstein said the film is "a bona fide fairy tale" that needed a "touch less entrancement and a touch more … story":^[17]

A. O. Scott of The New York Times called the film "exquisitely realized" with a "slower pace and a more contemplative tone than the novel. It is certainly exciting, but rather than race through ever noisier set pieces toward a hectic climax in the manner of so much animation aimed at kids, Coraline lingers in an atmosphere that is creepy, wonderfully strange and full of feeling."^[18]

Box office

According to Paul Dergarabedian, a movie business analyst with Media by Numbers, for the film to succeed it needed a box office comparable to Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which grossed $16 million its opening weekend and ended up making more than $192 million worldwide; prior to the film's release, Dergarabedian thought Laika "should be really pleased" if it made close to $10 million on its opening weekend.^[8]

In its US opening weekend, the film made $16.85 million, ranking third at the box office.^[4] It made $15 million on its second weekend, bringing its U.S. total up to $35.6 million, $25.5 million of which coming from 3D presentations.^[19] As of November 2009, the film has grossed $75,286,229 in the United States and Canada and $123,106,072 worldwide.^[2]

Accolades

• Honored with special achievement award (Martin Meunier, Brian McLean [for their Rapid Prototyping (RP) advances])

Awards

Awards
Award	Category	Recipient(s)	Outcome
Academy Awards	Best Animated Feature	Henry Selick	Nominated
American Film Institute Awards	Best 10 Movies		Won
Annie Awards
	Best Animated Feature		Nominated
	Best Directing in a Feature Production	Henry Selick	Nominated
	Best Voice Acting in a Feature Production	Dawn French	Nominated
	Best Music in an Animated Feature Production	Bruno Coulais	Won
	Best Character Animation in a Feature Production	Travis Knight	Nominated
	Best Character Design in a Feature Production	Shane Prigmore; Shannon Tindle	Won
	Best Production Design in a Feature Production	Christopher Appelhans; Tadahiro Uesugi	Won
	Best Storyboarding in a Feature Production	Chris Butler	Nominated
Annecy International Animated Film Festival Cristal Award	Best Feature - Tied		Won
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards	Best Animated Feature		Nominated
BAFTA Awards	Best Animated Film		Nominated
BAFTA Children’s Award	Best Feature Film		Won
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	Best Animated Feature		Nominated
Cinema Audio Society Awards
	Lifetime Achievement	Henry Selick	Won
	Career Achievement (sound designer/re-recording mixer)	Randy Thom	Won
EDA [Alliance of Women Film Journalists] Award
	Best Animated Female ([the character of] Coraline)		Won
	Best Animated Film		Nominated
Golden Globe Awards	Best Animated Feature Film		Nominated
Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards	Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Music, Dialogue and ADR Animation in a Feature Film		Nominated
Online Film Critics Society Awards	Best Animated Film		Nominated
People's Choice Awards	Best Animated 3D Movie of 2009		Nominated
Producers Guild of America Awards	Producer of the Year in Animated Motion Picture		Nominated
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards	Best Animated Feature		Won
St. Louis Film Critics Awards	Best Animated Film		Nominated
Visual Effects Society Awards
	Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture	Claire Jennings, Henry Selick	Nominated
	Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture	Coraline - Lead Animators Travis Knight and Trey Thomas	Nominated
	Outstanding Effects Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture	John Allan Armstrong, Richard Kent Burton, Craig Dowsett	Nominated
	Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture	Deborah Cook, Matthew DeLeu, Paul Mack, Martin Meunier	Nominated
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association	Best Animated Film		Nominated

References

1. ^ "Coraline rated PG by the BBFC". BBFC. January 29, 2009. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classified.nsf/c2fb077ba3f9b33980256b4f002da32c/7af591781e6867a4802575460031e934?OpenDocument. Retrieved 2009-04-05. "Run Time 100m 19s" 
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Coraline". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=coraline.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-11. 
3. ^ Savage, Annaliza. "Gaiman Calls Coraline the Strangest Stop-Motion Film Ever". Wired.com. Condé Nast Digital. http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/11/post-2/. Retrieved 18 August 2011. 
4. ^ ^{a b} "Moviegoers into Into You". The Hollywood Reporter. February 8, 2009. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib2336cb7507211a2e4389b8078d6194b. Retrieved 2009-02-16. ^{[dead link]}
5. ^ Henry Selick (Director). Coraline DVD Commentary. Event occurs at 00:25:00. 
6. ^ Oregon State Bar (September 2010). "Renter's Rights Oregon". http://www.osbar.org/public/legalinfo/1247_RightsDutiesLandlords.htm. Retrieved 24 October 2011. 
7. ^ ^{a b c d e f} McNichol, Tom (February 2009). "Hollywood Knights". Portland Monthly. http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/issues/current-issue/articles/0209-knights/?print=1. Retrieved 2009-02-15. 
8. ^ ^{a b c d e} Mesh, Aaron (February 4, 2009). "Suspended Animation". Willamette Week. http://wweek.com/editorial/3513/12165/. Retrieved 2009-02-10. 
9. ^ "Backstage view (19th of 21 backlot production photos)". David Strick's Hollywood Backlot. Los Angeles Times. August 7, 2008. http://photos.latimes.com/backlot/gallery/coraline/2008/9/15/Coraline_facility. Retrieved 2009-02-15. "Backstage view of the facility in which Coraline's stop-motion animation is filmed in Portland, Oregon. The Coraline stage is divided into approximately 50 units separated by black curtains. Each unit contains a different set that is in the process of being dressed, lit, rigged or shot." 
10. ^ "Objet Geometries’ 3D Printers Play Starring Role in New Animated Film Coraline" (Press release). Object Technologies. 2009-02-05. http://www.objet.com/News_Events/News/News_2008/Objet_Geometries_3D_Printers_Play_Starring_Role_/. Retrieved 2009-07-23. 
11. ^ ^{a b} "Capone Talks with CORALINE Director and Wizard Master Henry Selick!!!". 2009. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39977. Retrieved 2010-02-09. 
12. ^ "Movie Coraline - DVD Sales". The Numbers. Nash Information Services,. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2009/CORLN-DVD.php. Retrieved 18 August 2011. 
13. ^ "Webby Awards". http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=13. Retrieved 2009-06-13. 
14. ^ Remo, Chris (June 16, 2008). "D3 Announces Coraline And Shaun The Sheep Adaptations". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18932. Retrieved 2008-06-16. 
15. ^ "Coraline Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. February 5, 2009. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/coraline/. Retrieved 2009-02-10. 
16. ^ "Coraline (2009): Reviews". Metacritic. February 5, 2009. http://www.metacritic.com/movie/coraline. Retrieved 2009-02-10. 
17. ^ Edelstein, David (February 1, 2009). "What You See Is What You Get". New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/movies/reviews/53785/. Retrieved 2009-02-16. 
18. ^ Scott, A.O. (February 6, 2009). "Cornered in a Parallel World". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/movies/06cora.html?ref=movies. Retrieved 2009-02-16. 
19. ^ "Holdovers Live Under Killer Friday Debut". Box Office Mojo. February 15, 2009. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2548. Retrieved 2009-02-16. 

External links

• Official website
• Coraline at the Internet Movie Database
• Coraline (film) at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Coraline at AllRovi
• Coraline at Rotten Tomatoes
• Coraline at Metacritic
• Coraline at Box Office Mojo