Animation production house LAIKA has leased roughly 60,000 square feet of space in the Leland James Center in Northwest Portland, where it will produce its second CG-animated feature film, Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure. The space will serve as a production, technology and administrative facility until the company builds its new, state-of-the-art studios on 30 acres of land that chairman Phil Knight recently purchased in Tualatin, 12 miles south of Portland.
LAIKA is currently in production on Coraline a stop-motion feature being directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach). Based on the international bestselling children’s novel by Neil Gaiman, the fantasy pic will feature the voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher and the British comedy duo French and Saunders.
Animator and writer Jorgen Klubien is directing Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure, which is described as a heartwarming story of brotherly love set in the animal kingdom. LAIKA plans to have the film ready for distribution in 2009. The company has also acquired film rights to U.K. writer/illustrator Alan Snow’s bestselling series of children’s novels, Here Be Monsters.
Leased from the Con-way Group, the new production space is located just two blocks from LAIKA’s current headquarters. The building will house the entire Jack & Ben crew, including animators, until the new animation campus opens in 2008.
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