At no point did anyone try to get me to change it, because I think they all understood it was intrinsic to the genetics of the story.
LAIKA PARANORMAN MOVIE
The reveal of Mitch’s gayness is almost an aside but I think that everyone who watches the movie is taken aback by it because they made an assumption based on the way he talks and his character he’s a dumb jock. I wanted to make them feel like they knew a character just by looking at them. Every character in the movie is either judged or judging, and I wanted to make the audience complicit in that. Mitch’s gay reveal was specifically placed at the end because the movie is about judgement. Was that something you had to fight for or did it sail through without any pushback? But back then, to somebody like me, it was an “Oh, cool, I wonder why this speaks to me…” If you hold it to 2022 standards, it’s really minor. I remember watching the film in cinemas back in 2012 and having a small revelation to the reveal Mitch’s sexuality at the end.
It’s not perfect, but it’s a first step, and that feels real to me. That last scene where he acknowledges the ghost of his mother might be sitting next to him? That’s him trying to see things from Norman’s point-of-view. What we get is Perry awkwardly making an effort. He is the world’s worst dad in so many ways! I didn’t want to get to the end and he’s suddenly a completely different character, because that’s not how life works. I think the character that’s most important on how that plays out is Perry.
LAIKA PARANORMAN FULL
I feel like a less confident movie would’ve tried for a full uplift. Watching back again, I was struck by how truthfully bittersweet and melancholic much of ParaNorman is, particularly by the ending. Having that process means you can see how far you’re going with the drama, the horror, the comedy. We make the movie in storyboards to create an animatic and we watch that thing so many times to see how it plays. Of course, we were making this thing many, many times. You have moments which are genuinely upsetting and scary, but you have to offset them though not too much so. We wanted it to feel like a rollercoaster where you have peaks and troughs. ParaNorman doesn’t shy away from those topics of death, judgement, guilt, past sins, persecution. It might use grotesque imagery, but it’s not really delving into dark subject matter. There’s a lot of so-called “spooky” kids’ stuff, but much of that is actually pretty tame. I directed with Sam Fell and it really helped having somebody you can constantly check yourself on. How hard was it working out the tone of the film? Travis had read the first 30 pages and went “Where’s the rest?” I said “Oh, it’s back home!” and it wasn’t! I hadn’t finished writing it! I finished that first draft as quickly as I could. ” I didn’t do any pitch to Travis, it was just “Read this and tell me what you think.” As I recall, he called me to his office and told me “I want it to be our next movie and I want you to direct it.” He says that my response was sitting there in shock staring at him for a few minutes! He read that and said “this is great, we should show it to Travis. I had always been obsessed with horror and wanted to make this Scooby Doo-esque horror story for kids. LWLies: What was your first memory of pitching ParaNorman?Ĭhris Butler: I was Head of Story on Coraline and first showed the idea to Henry Sellick. Ambitiously tactile and askew in its distinctive animation and designs, uniquely mature in its storytelling.Īhead of a new 4K anniversary theatrical re-release, co-director Chris Butler graciously hopped onto Zoom to discuss the unfinished pitch that got him the greenlight, the challenges of metaphorically balancing tone and literally balancing puppets, and the important queer milestone of one Mitch Downe.
LAIKA PARANORMAN TRIAL
A family horror-comedy about a young outcast who can commune with ghosts and has to stop a curse connected to his sleepy Massachusetts town’s disturbing witch trial past, the film was one of 2012’s finest, animated or otherwise. Ten years ago, Laika Studios cemented their status as stop-motion animation pioneers with their second feature, ParaNorman. The co-director of the weird and wonderful stop motion modern classic ParaNorman reflects on the film's legacy a decade later. Chris Butler on ParaNorman: ‘We wanted it to feel like a rollercoaster’
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