In the wake of Key and Peele‘s departure from Comedy Central, Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key will not go quietly into the night. In fact, they’re all over the place and branching into darker realms, including Peele’s directorial debut, a horror movie revolving around race in America. The good thing about ending a show “on top” is that audiences will be receptive to future endeavors with all those fond memories still fresh.
This new announcement is fairly delicious, although it will not involve any comedic stylings in manner of Hingle McCringleberry. Key and Peele have teamed up for a stop-motion animation film that will be directed by none other than Henry Selick, who is the man as far as stop-motion is concerned. Selick is, of course, the delightfully wicked mind who brought us Disney’s classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the breathtakingly spooky adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. Now Selick’s teaming up with this comedy duo for an unlikely subject — demons and goth teens:
“Wendell and Wild is a comedy about two scheming demon brothers who must face their arch-nemesis, the demon-dusting nun Sister Helly, and her two acolytes, the goth teens Kat and Raoul,” says Selick.
Selick, Key and Peele are currently discussing the creative details, says Key and Peele’s manager Joel Zadak of Principato-Young. “It is not set up yet with a buyer, but the entire team is passionate about the direction,” he says.
Peele will take a co-writing credit with Selick, who will both produce and direct the film. So far, the project is still in preliminary stages, as the film hasn’t received the official greenlight. Hopefully, the internet will help create enough interest to spur that process into action.
The bad news here (if there is any) is that stop-motion is such a painstaking endeavor — and Selick is such a perfectionist — that this film will be a long time in the making. After all, Coraline took seven years from the licensing of Gaiman’s book to theater time. Will Key and Peele’s current fans stick around long enough to watch this project? Yes, they probably will.
(Via Variety)
