Laika’s First PG-13 Film, Brad Bird’s Neo-Noir and an Alzheimer’s Memoir: Animation’s Revolution Isn’t for Kids

At SCAD Film Festival, the directors of this year’s animated feature contenders are making films not aimed at children.

By Clayton Davis

Clayton Davis

Chief Awards Editor

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The MPA gave “Wildwood” a PG-13 for “strong fantasy violence/bloody images, thematic material, suicide-related material, brief partial nudity and language,” which is a mouthful for any movie and an especially wild one for a stop-motion picture about a girl hunting for her kidnapped baby brother.

It’s the first PG-13 in Laika’s 17 years as a feature studio, and at 140 minutes, it ties the record for the longest English-language animated film ever made. Travis Knight, who runs the Portland, Ore., studio and directed “Wildwood,” didn’t land there by accident. Anyone who remembers how dark the back half of “Kubo and the Two Strings” got probably isn’t shocked he went this far.

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