Coraline (film)
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''Coraline'' is a 2009 American stop-motion animated
dark fantasy Dark fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy literary, artistic, and cinematic works that incorporate disturbing and frightening themes of fantasy. It often combines fantasy with elements of horror or has a gloomy dark tone or a sense of horror and dr ...
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
written and directed by
Henry Selick Charles Henry Selick Jr. (; born November 30, 1952) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, production designer, and animator who is best known for directing the stop-motion animation films ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' (1993), ...
and based on
Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...
's novella of the same name. Produced by
Laika Laika (russian: link=no, Лайка; – 3 November 1957) was a Soviet space dog who was one of the first animals in space and the first to orbit the Earth. A stray mongrel from the streets of Moscow, she flew aboard the Sputnik 2 space ...
as the studio's first feature film, it features the voice talents of
Dakota Fanning Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994) is an American actress. She rose to prominence at the age of seven for her performance as Lucy Dawson in the drama film ''I Am Sam'' (2001), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomin ...
,
Teri Hatcher Teri Lynn Hatcher (born December 8, 1964) is an American actress best known for her portrayals of Lois Lane on the television series '' Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman'' (1993–1997); Paris Carver in the ''James Bond'' film ''Tomor ...
,
Jennifer Saunders Jennifer Jane Saunders (born 6 July 1958) is an English actress, comedian, singer and screenwriter. Saunders originally found attention in the 1980s, when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Royal Central School of ...
,
Dawn French Dawn Roma French (born 11 October 1957) is a British actress, comedian, presenter and writer. French is known for writing and starring on the BBC comedy sketch show ''French and Saunders'' with her best friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunde ...
,
Keith David Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his signature deep voice and commanding screen presence in over 300 roles across film, stage, television, and interactive media. He has starred in such films as '' T ...
,
John Hodgman John Kellogg Hodgman (born June 3, 1971) is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as '' The Areas of My Expertise'', ''More Information Than You Require'', and '' That Is All'', he is known for ...
, Robert Bailey Jr., and
Ian McShane Ian David McShane (born 29 September 1942) is an English actor, producer and director. He is known for his television performances, particularly as the title role in the BBC series ''Lovejoy'' (1986–1994), Al Swearengen in '' Deadwood'' (20 ...
. The film tells the story of its titular character discovering an idealized parallel universe behind a secret door in her new home, unaware that it contains a dark and sinister secret. Just as Gaiman was finishing his novella in 2002, he met Selick and invited him to make a film adaptation, as Gaiman was a fan of Selick's ''
The Nightmare Before Christmas ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' (also known as ''Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas'') is a 1993 American stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increme ...
'' and ''
James and the Giant Peach ''James and the Giant Peach'' is a popular children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The first edition, published by Alfred Knopf, featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. There have been re-illustrated versions of ...
''. When Selick thought that a direct adaptation would lead to "maybe a 47-minute movie", the screenplay had some expansions, like the introduction of Wybie, who was not present in the original novel. Selick invited Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi to become the concept artist upon discovering his work, when looking for a design away from that of most animation. His biggest influences was on the color palette, which was muted in reality and more colorful in the Other World, similar to '' The Wizard of Oz''. To capture
stereoscopy Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...
for the 3D release, the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions. Production of the stop-motion animation feature took place at a warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon.
Bruno Coulais Bruno Coulais (born 13 January 1954) is a French composer, most widely known for his music on film soundtracks. Life and career Coulais was born in Paris; his father, Farth Coulais, is from Vendée, and his mother, Bernsy Coulais, was born in ...
composed the film's musical score. The film was theatrically released in the United States on February 6, 2009 by
Focus Features Focus Features LLC is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast as part of Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in th ...
after a world premiere at the
Portland International Film Festival PAM CUT–Center for an Untold Tomorrow, formerly the ''Northwest Film Center'' is a regional media arts resource and service organization based in Portland, Oregon, United States that was founded to encourage the study, appreciation, and utilizat ...
on February 5, and received critical acclaim. The film grossed $16.85 million during its opening weekend, ranking third at the box office, and by the end of its run had grossed over $124 million worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time after ''
Chicken Run ''Chicken Run'' is a 2000 stop-motion animated comedy film produced by Pathé and Aardman Animations in partnership with DreamWorks Animation. Aardman’s first feature-length film and DreamWorks Animation's fourth film, it was directed by ...
'' and '' Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit''. The film won
Annie Award The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in cinema and television. Originally desi ...
s for Best Music in an Animated Feature Production, Best Character Design in an Animated Feature Production and Best Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, and received nominations for an
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is given each year for animated films. An animated feature is defined by the Academy as a film with a running time of more than 40 minutes in which characters' performances are created using a frame-by- ...
and a
Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film The Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film is a Golden Globe Award that was awarded for the first time at the 64th Golden Globe Awards in 2007. It was the first time that the Golden Globe Awards had created a separate category for anima ...
.


Plot

Coraline Jones struggles to adapt to her new life after she and her
workaholic A workaholic is a person who works compulsively. A workaholic experiences an inability to limit the amount of time they spend on work despite negative consequences such as damage to their relationships or health. There is no generally accepted ...
parents move from
Pontiac, Michigan Pontiac ( ') is a city in and the county seat of Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 61,606. A northern suburb of Metro Detroit, Pontiac is about northwest of Detroit. Founde ...
to the Pink Palace Apartments in
Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 cen ...
. She meets the landlady's grandson, Wyborne "Wybie" Lovat, and a stray
black cat A black cat is a domestic cat with black fur that may be a mixed or specific breed, or a common domestic cat of no particular breed. The Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) recognizes 22 cat breeds that can come with solid black coats. The Bombay b ...
. Later, Wybie gives her a button-eyed ragdoll from his grandmother's trunk that eerily resembles Coraline. The doll guides Coraline to a small door in her apartment with a bricked up wall behind it. That night, a
mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...
leads Coraline back to the door, now a portal leading to a parallel universe, where Coraline meets her Other Mother and Father, button-eyed doppelgängers of her parents who appear more attentive and caring. She returns home the next morning, where Wybie recounts the disappearance of his great-aunt. Coraline's neighbors Sergei Alexander Bobinsky, an eccentric
Chernobyl liquidator Chernobyl liquidators were the civil and military personnel who were called upon to deal with the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union on the site of the event. The liquidators are widely credited with limiti ...
-turned-gymnast who owns a mouse circus, and retired
burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.
actresses April Spink and Miriam Forcible cryptically warn her about imminent danger. Despite the warnings, Coraline visits the Other World twice more. Accompanied by the mute Other Wybie, she is entertained by the dimension's doppelgängers of her neighbors and meets the cat, who can traverse between the two worlds and speaks in the Other World. On Coraline's third visit, the Other Mother offers to let her stay in the Other World permanently, in exchange for having buttons sewn over her eyes. Horrified, Coraline tries to escape back to her world, but the Other Mother imprisons her in a room behind a mirror. There, the ghosts of past victims, including Wybie's great-aunt, tell Coraline how the Other Mother, whom they call the Beldam, used ragdolls of themselves to spy and lure them to the Other World. After accepting the Beldam's offer to sew buttons over their eyes, she robbed them of their souls. The ghosts explain that they can only be freed by retrieving the essences of their souls, which the Beldam has hidden throughout the Other World. Coraline promises to do so, and is rescued by the Other Wybie, who helps her return home. Coraline realizes the Beldam has kidnapped her parents, forcing her to return to the Other World. Accompanied by the cat, Coraline proposes a game: if she can find her parents and the essences of the ghosts' souls, they will all go free; if not, she will finally accept the Beldam's offer. The Beldam agrees and Coraline searches for the souls' essences, discovering that the Beldam murdered the Other Wybie for his defiance. As she finds each essence, parts of the Other World turn lifeless as the entire dimension eventually disintegrates. Coraline encounters the Beldam in her true
arachnid Arachnida () is a class of joint-legged invertebrate animals (arthropods), in the subphylum Chelicerata. Arachnida includes, among others, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, pseudoscorpions, harvestmen, camel spiders, whip spiders and vinegaroon ...
-like form, and the ghost of Wybie's great-aunt warns that the Beldam will not honor her bargain. Tricking the Beldam into opening the door to the real world by claiming that her parents are behind it, Coraline throws the cat at her and rescues her parents, who are trapped in a
snow globe A snow globe (also called a waterglobe, snowstorm, or snowdome) is a transparent sphere, traditionally made of glass, enclosing a miniaturized scene of some sort, often together with a model of a town, neighborhood, landscape or figure. The sph ...
. Coraline narrowly escapes through the door, severing the Beldam's right hand. Back home, Coraline reunites with her parents, who have forgotten about their capture. That night, the ghosts appear in Coraline's dream and thank her for freeing them, but warn that the Beldam is still after the key needed to unlock the door. Coraline decides to drop the key down an old well, but the Beldam's severed hand attacks her. Wybie arrives and, after a struggle, destroys the hand with a large rock. The duo toss the key and the hand's remnants into the well and seal it. The next day, Coraline and her parents host a party for their neighbors, including Wybie's grandmother, whom Coraline and Wybie prepare to tell about her missing sister's fate.


Voice cast

*
Dakota Fanning Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994) is an American actress. She rose to prominence at the age of seven for her performance as Lucy Dawson in the drama film ''I Am Sam'' (2001), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomin ...
as Coraline Jones *
Teri Hatcher Teri Lynn Hatcher (born December 8, 1964) is an American actress best known for her portrayals of Lois Lane on the television series '' Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman'' (1993–1997); Paris Carver in the ''James Bond'' film ''Tomor ...
as Melanie "Mel" Jones and The Beldam (also known as The Other Mother) *
Jennifer Saunders Jennifer Jane Saunders (born 6 July 1958) is an English actress, comedian, singer and screenwriter. Saunders originally found attention in the 1980s, when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Royal Central School of ...
as April Spink and her Other World counterpart *
Dawn French Dawn Roma French (born 11 October 1957) is a British actress, comedian, presenter and writer. French is known for writing and starring on the BBC comedy sketch show ''French and Saunders'' with her best friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunde ...
as Miriam Forcible and her Other World counterpart *
John Hodgman John Kellogg Hodgman (born June 3, 1971) is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as '' The Areas of My Expertise'', ''More Information Than You Require'', and '' That Is All'', he is known for ...
as Charlie Jones and The Other Father **
John Linnell John Sidney Linnell ( ; born June 12, 1959) is an American musician, known primarily as one half of the Brooklyn-based alternative rock band They Might Be Giants with John Flansburgh, which was formed in 1982. In addition to singing and songwri ...
provides the Other Father's singing voice * Robert Bailey Jr. as Wyborne "Wybie" Lovat *
Keith David Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his signature deep voice and commanding screen presence in over 300 roles across film, stage, television, and interactive media. He has starred in such films as '' T ...
as The Cat *
Ian McShane Ian David McShane (born 29 September 1942) is an English actor, producer and director. He is known for his television performances, particularly as the title role in the BBC series ''Lovejoy'' (1986–1994), Al Swearengen in '' Deadwood'' (20 ...
as Sergei Alexander Bobinsky and his Other World counterpart * Carolyn Crawford as Mrs. Lovat * Aankha Neal, George Selick, and Hannah Kaiser as the Ghost Children * Marina Budovsky and Harry Selick as Coraline's friends back in
Pontiac, Michigan Pontiac ( ') is a city in and the county seat of Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 61,606. A northern suburb of Metro Detroit, Pontiac is about northwest of Detroit. Founde ...


Production

Director
Henry Selick Charles Henry Selick Jr. (; born November 30, 1952) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, production designer, and animator who is best known for directing the stop-motion animation films ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' (1993), ...
met author
Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...
just as Gaiman was finishing the novel ''
Coraline ''Coraline'' () is a dark fantasy horror children's novella by British author Neil Gaiman. Gaiman started writing ''Coraline'' in 1990, and it was published in 2002 by Bloomsbury and HarperCollins. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best ...
'', and given that Gaiman was a fan of Selick's ''
The Nightmare Before Christmas ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'' (also known as ''Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas'') is a 1993 American stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increme ...
'', he invited him to make a possible film adaptation. As Selick thought a direct adaptation would lead to "maybe a 47-minute movie", his screenplay had some expansions, such as the creation of Wybie, who was not present in the original novel. When looking for a design away from that of most animation, Selick discovered the work of Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi and invited him to become the concept artist. One of Uesugi's biggest influences was on the color palette, which was muted in reality and more colorful in the Other World, similar to '' The Wizard of Oz''."The Making of Coraline", ''Coraline'' DVD Uesugi declared that "at the beginning, it was supposed to be a small project over a few weeks to simply create characters; however, I ended up working on the project for over a year, eventually designing sets and backgrounds, on top of drawing the basic images for the story to be built upon." ''Coraline'' was staged in a 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m2) warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon. The stage was divided into 50 lots, which played host to nearly 150 sets. Among the sets were three miniature Victorian mansions, a 42-foot (12.8 m) apple orchard, and a model of
Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 cen ...
, including tiny details such as banners for the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary pla ...
. More than 28 animators worked at a time on rehearsing or shooting scenes, producing 90–100 seconds of finished animation each week. To capture
stereoscopy Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...
for the 3D release, the animators shot each frame from two slightly apart camera positions. Every object on screen was made for the film. The crew used three
3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...
systems from Objet in the development and production of the film. Thousands of high-quality 3D models, ranging from facial expressions to doorknobs, were printed in 3D using the Polyjet matrix systems, which enable the fast transformation of
CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...
(computer-aided design) drawings into high-quality 3D models. The puppets had separate parts for the upper and lower parts of the head that could be exchanged for different facial expressions, and the characters of ''Coraline'' could potentially exhibit over 208,000 facial expressions. Computer artists composited separately-shot elements together, or added elements of their own, which had to look handcrafted instead of computer-generated – for instance, the flames were done with traditional animation and painted digitally, and the fog was dry ice. At its peak, the film involved the efforts of 450 people, including from 30 to 35 animators and digital designers in the Digital Design Group (DDG), directed by Dan Casey, and more than 250 technicians and designers. One crew member, Althea Crome, was hired specifically to knit miniature sweaters and other clothing for the puppet characters, sometimes using
knitting needle A knitting needle or knitting pin is a tool in hand-knitting to produce knitted fabrics. They generally have a long shaft and taper at their end, but they are not nearly as sharp as sewing needles. Their purpose is two-fold. The long shaft ' ...
s as thin as human hair. The clothes also simulated wear using paint and a
file File or filing may refer to: Mechanical tools and processes * File (tool), a tool used to ''remove'' fine amounts of material from a workpiece **Filing (metalworking), a material removal process in manufacturing ** Nail file, a tool used to gent ...
.


Music

The soundtrack for ''Coraline'' features songs composed by French composer
Bruno Coulais Bruno Coulais (born 13 January 1954) is a French composer, most widely known for his music on film soundtracks. Life and career Coulais was born in Paris; his father, Farth Coulais, is from Vendée, and his mother, Bernsy Coulais, was born in ...
, with one ("Other Father Song") by
They Might Be Giants They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a d ...
. The Other Father's singing voice is provided by
John Linnell John Sidney Linnell ( ; born June 12, 1959) is an American musician, known primarily as one half of the Brooklyn-based alternative rock band They Might Be Giants with John Flansburgh, which was formed in 1982. In addition to singing and songwri ...
, one of the singers from the band. They had initially written 10 songs for the film; when a melancholy tone was decided, all but one were cut. Coulais' score was performed by the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra and features choral pieces sung by the Children's Choir of
Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...
in a nonsense language. Selick mentions that the main soloist, "a young girl you hear singing in several parts of the film," is coincidentally named Coraline. ''Coraline'' won Coulais the 2009
Annie Award The Annie Awards are accolades which the Los Angeles branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood, has presented each year since 1972 to recognize excellence in animation shown in cinema and television. Originally desi ...
for best score for an animated feature.


Release

''Coraline'' was theatrically released on February 6, 2009.


Home media

The film was released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
and
Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
in the United States on July 21, 2009, by
Universal Studios Home Entertainment Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Video, MCA/Universal Home Video, MCA Home Video, MCA Videodisc and MCA Videocassette, Inc.) is the home video distribution division of Am ...
. A 3-D version comes with four sets of 3-D glasses—specifically the green-magenta anaglyph image. ''Coraline'' was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on October 12, 2009. A 3-D version of the film was also released on a 2-Disc Collector's Edition. The DVD opened to first week sales of 1,036,845 and over $19 million in revenue. Total sales stand at over 2.6 million units and over $45 million in revenue. A two-disc Blu-ray 3D set, which includes a
stereoscopic 3D Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...
on the first disc and an
anaglyph 3D Anaglyph 3D is the stereoscopic 3D effect achieved by means of encoding each eye's image using filters of different (usually chromatically opposite) colors, typically red and cyan. Anaglyph 3D images contain two differently filtered colored ...
image, was released in 2011. A new edition from Shout! Factory under license from Universal was released on August 31, 2021.


Other media

The website for ''Coraline'' involves an interactive exploration game where the player can scroll through Coraline's world. It won the 2009
Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include ...
for "Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics", both by the people and the Webby organization. It was also nominated for the Webby "Movie and Film" category. On June 16, 2008,
D3 Publisher is a Japanese video game developer and publisher founded on February 5, 1992. The company is known for the ''Simple'' series of budget-priced video games. Their games have been released for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Ni ...
announced the release of a video game based on the film. It was developed by
Papaya Studio Papaya Studio was an independent American video game developer based in Irvine, California. Papaya Studio was known for titles on the Xbox 360, Wii, PC, PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by S ...
for the
Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...
and
PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...
and by Art Co. for
Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...
. It was released on January 27, 2009, close to the film's theatrical release. The soundtrack was released digitally February 3, 2009, by
E1 Music MNRK Music Group (pronounced "monarch", formerly known as Koch Records and eOne Music) is a New York City-based independent record label and music management company. It was formed in 2009 from the music assets of Koch Entertainment, which had ...
, and in stores on February 24, 2009.


Reception


Box office

According to Paul Dergarabedian, a film business analyst with Media by Numbers, for the film to succeed it needed a box office comparable to '' Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit'', which had grossed $16 million its opening weekend and ended up making more than $192 million worldwide; prior to the film's release, Dergarabedian thought Laika Studios "should be really pleased" were ''Coraline'' to make $10 million in its opening weekend. In its US opening weekend, the film grossed $16.85 million, ranking third at the box office. It made $15 million during its second weekend, bringing its U.S. total up to $35.6 million, $25.5 million of which came from 3D presentations. As of November 2009, the film has grossed $75,286,229 in the United States and Canada and $49,310,169 in other territories, for a total of $124,596,398 worldwide.


Critical response

On the review aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 271 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With its vivid stop-motion animation combined with Neil Gaiman's imaginative story, ''Coraline'' is a film that's both visually stunning and wondrously entertaining." On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a
weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
score of 80 out of 100 based on reviews from 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "a beautiful film about several nasty people", as well as "nightmare fodder for children, however brave, under a certain age."
David Edelstein David Edelstein (born 1959) is a freelance American film critic who has been the principal film critic for ''Slate'' and ''New York'' magazine, among others, and has appeared regularly on NPR's ''Fresh Air'' and ''CBS Sunday Morning'' programs. O ...
said the film is "a '' bona fide''
fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
" that needed a "touch less entrancement and a touch more ... story." A. O. Scott of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called the film "exquisitely realized," with a "slower pace and a more contemplative tone than the novel. It is certainly exciting, but rather than race through ever noisier set pieces toward a hectic climax in the manner of so much animation aimed at kids, ''Coraline'' lingers in an atmosphere that is creepy, wonderfully strange and full of feeling."


Accolades


See also

*
List of ghost films Ghost movies and shows can fall into a wide range of genres, including romance, comedy, horror, juvenile interest, and drama. Depictions of ghosts are as diverse as Casper the Friendly Ghost, Beetlejuice, Hamlet's father, Jacob Marley, Freddy Kru ...


References


External links

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Coraline 2009 films 2009 horror films 2009 animated films 2009 fantasy films 2000s ghost films 2009 3D films 3D animated films 2000s children's films 2000s American animated films American animated horror films American children's animated fantasy films American ghost films American 3D films Clay animation films Films about witchcraft 2000s stop-motion animated films American dark fantasy films American fantasy drama films American horror drama films Animated films about cats Children's horror films Films set in Oregon Films shot in Oregon Films based on British novels Films based on horror novels Films based on fantasy novels Films based on works by Neil Gaiman Laika (company) animated films Focus Features animated films Focus Features films Films directed by Henry Selick Films based on short fiction Films about parallel universes Films set in apartment buildings Animated films based on novels Annecy Cristal for a Feature Film winners American supernatural drama films American supernatural horror films American animated feature films Films scored by Bruno Coulais Supernatural fantasy films Talking animals in fiction 2000s English-language films