Laika details Wildwood's scale: 136 sets, 231 puppets, 54 hero characters

LAIKA's own behind-the-scenes reveal for Wildwood (catalogued here as Wildwood), reported by Screen Rant, puts the production at 136 physical sets -- several large enough for the crew to walk through -- 231 practical puppets and 54 hero characters, the studio's largest build to date. LAIKA chief marketing and operations officer Dave Burke called it "our most ambitious film yet"; director Travis Knight described it as "the hardest thing we have ever done." Separate coverage (Forbes) quotes Knight noting the crew "developed new stop-motion controls and techniques for some of their puppets" over the film's near-15-year development since 2011, alongside LAIKA's typical output of roughly 3-4 seconds of finished animation per animator per week. Update (2026-09-10): The Associated Press's fall-movie-preview piece by Jake Coyle frames the production against generative AI, quoting Knight calling the handmade process "a quiet act of rebellion" in an era where "entire worlds can be generated with a click of a mouse," and that "the making of the art leaves fingerprints on the art. And I think people feel that." The piece also gives the film's runtime for the first time (132 minutes) and puts the build time on the golden-eagle puppet The General at roughly 3,000 hours.