Has everybody seen Coraline yet? You should, and in 3D if at all possible — I’d go so far as to say it’s the first movie I’ve seen that really justifies being 3D; it enhances the experience tenfold. For those of you who haven’t heard, Coraline is the new, stop-motion-animated film from Henry Selick, director of cult classics The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, and adapted from Neil Gaiman’s book. IMHO, it’s destined to be a classic in its own right.
In addition to being made in an untraditional way (once you see it you’ll see what I mean), it’s had a pretty untraditional marketing campaign. Yes, it’s had trailers and posters like most other movies, but have you ever heard of movie-themed shoes? Nike — owned by Phil Knight, father of the fellow who runs the animation studio that created Coraline — did a limited edition run of Coraline Dunks. (How limited? There are only 100 pairs, which you can either win and get for free, or pay upwards of $4,000 for.)
Another marketing first are the Coraline “alphabet cards.” They’re essentially 26 mini-posters — one for each letter of the alphabet — each of which take a letter, tie it to to something Coraline-related, about which an Edward Gorey-style rhyming couplet has been composed. Then these mini-posters were disseminated on the internet, to 26 different “exclusive” sites on the same day, which drove Coraline fans from site to site in order to find all the posters, creating a kind of viral scavenger hunt. Fun stuff. Anyway, rather than make you all hunt, I wanted to share a few of my favorite alphabet cards here — after the jump.
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Cute… FYI, the “I” poster is shown twice.
posted by Sarah in CA on 2-24-2009 at 11:12 am
Cute, but kinda creepy. But then again, you did say Edward Gorey!
posted by Sara in AL on 2-24-2009 at 11:24 am
Uh, Sarah, the first one is a “j”, the last one is an “i”
posted by Carl on 2-24-2009 at 12:29 pm
This movie was great. My husband and i just saw it in 3-D Sunday. I highly reccomend everyone to see it.
posted by Jennfier on 2-24-2009 at 12:33 pm
It would have been really fun to write those cards. I wonder who got that awesome job.
The movie was great. I took my daughter to see it in 3D, although she spent most of the time in the theater wondering why I was making her wear enormous glasses. But in the end, it was a success since she asked me when we got home if we had mice and if she could play inside the wall.
posted by adrienne on 2-24-2009 at 12:50 pm
Man I just checked and it doesn’t get released in the UK until MAY! This is going to be a long wait.
posted by Tricia on 2-24-2009 at 4:22 pm
Further proof that awesome attracts awesome.
Mental floss= Awesome
Neil Gaiman= Awesome
Stop motion animation= AWESOME
I love my interwebs.
posted by Melissa on 2-24-2009 at 5:00 pm
I confess — as excited as I am for the movie to come out here in the UK, I can already feel it will be a bit of a let down. The book, you see, was and is probably my favorite book ever and while the only way I should ever want it filmed is like this, there’s something so deliciously unfilmable about it. Chalk it up to imagination, I guess.
In any case, if you haven’t read the book yet, please do before seeing the movie!
posted by linda on 2-24-2009 at 5:39 pm
@Linda: If it were anything else, I’d agree with you. I’m one of Neil Gaiman’s greatest fans (I’m sure there are many out there who would contest the title and probably win, but I’m up there) and Coraline was not my favorite thing he’s put out. It was…different than what I was looking for in life when I found it. His books are like that. They strike you when it’s necessary. But I’ve seen Coraline the Movie twice now, and it is brilliant in every way possible. The artistry, the story-telling, the audacity…it’s all there. It’s Gaiman-esqe while still being its own entity. Yes, read the book. It will be different. And if it strikes you at the right time, it will be the best thing you’ve read. But if not, and you at least see the film, well…you’ll at least see the amount of love and life and creepiness that a handmade stop-motion picture, (in the world of heartless CG), can bring to your life.
posted by JenPo on 2-24-2009 at 11:48 pm
GREAT, FaNTASTIC, EXCELLENT movie!!
I have 3 kids and each one is a character..lol
my girl is Coraline, my boy is Whybe and the other boy is the cat..My KIds love this movie and we have watched it at least 100 times (not lying)my kids know the words and sometimes act the movie….loved this movie ALOT!!!! good Job!!!!
posted by Marisol on 8-5-2009 at 8:37 pm