Written by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub
A few weeks ago, I got to take an early look at Director Henry Selick’s (“The Nightmare Before Christmas”) next movie “Coraline”. For those that don’t know, “Coraline” is based on the bestselling book by Neil Gaiman about a girl that walks through a secret door in her home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life – only much better. But when the new world turns dangerous, and her counterfeit parents try to keep her forever, Coraline must find a way to get home and save her real family.

Trust me, it’s a very cool story and it’s a movie you should really be looking forward to.

So about that footage….since many of you like being spoiler free before walking into a movie theater, I’ll just say the footage looked incredible. As you might imagine, the movie looks similar to Henry’s previous films but it’s much more creepy. This is definitely not a little kids movie….

Also, another very cool bit of info is “Coraline” is the first animated feature film to be made in stereoscopic 3-D. And unlike many 3-D movies that try too hard with the effect, based on the footage we were shown, he’s using it in a very controlled way. Meaning, don’t expect every shot to be pushing out of the screen and that’s a very good thing. He’s saving it for when he really wants to freak you out….

Anyway, the best part of the evening happened after the footage was shown.

As we all left the theater, the lobby was filled with the actual props and figures from the movie. And as we walked around to look at the displays, we were able to speak with some of the animators and director Henry Selick. In the coming days I’ll have a few more interviews from the night…but here's the first one and it’s with Henry.

And thanks to Erico from our partner website Omelete, the interview came out great! Not only did he hold the camera at the event and make the interview easy for me, Erico and the team at Omelete have cut the interview with actual footage from the movie and b-roll from the event! Thanks to those guys, what you’re about to watch is one of the best video interviews we’ve ever posted on Collider. So big thanks to them.

Finally, after watching the video interview look for a few more “Coraline” links you may like. “Coraline” will be in theaters February 6th, 2009.

Henry Selick Interview

  • Henry explains the story behind Coraline

  • I ask him what fans can expect from the movie – did he stick close to the book – says there are a few changes but nothing that should upset the fans

  • Explains what Neil Gaiman suggested for the movie

  • Explains the use of 3-D in the movie and why he’s selective with it

  • Talks about the soundtrack for Coraline (he wrote a song!) and compares it to Nightmare

  • Says the movie will be 95 minutes and fans can expect 5 minutes of deleted scenes on the DVD/Blu-ray

  • And most important…he says everyone should stay through the end credits as he’s planning something very special - he explains what it is

Some more Coraline articles you may like:

Collider goes to the set of Coraline - part one

Collider goes to the set of Coraline - part two

Watch Five Video Featurettes from Coraline