Movies
‘Crumble’ – Brian Duffield to Write/Direct Live-Action Film for Laika
Laika, the animation studio behind ParaNorman and Coraline, are entering the realm of live-action films with Crumble, with Spontaneous and No One Will Save You filmmaker Brian Duffield set to write and direct per Deadline.
Crumble follows “a married couple who embark on a world-traveling adventure to find a cure for an ancient curse.”
Academy Award winners Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the duo behind Cocaine Bear and the animated Spider-Verse films, are tapped to produce alongside Aditya Sood through their Lord Miller banner. Lucy Kitada and Nikki Baida from Lord Miller will serve as executive producers.
Lord and Miller said in a joint statement that they’re “so excited to keep collaborating with our friend Brian Duffield, who has written a script that is endlessly imaginative, funny, and romantic. We have long been fans of LAIKA and Travis Knight’s groundbreaking work in animation and could not be more excited to join forces with them in live action.”
Considering Laika’s genre-bending animated features, Duffield feels perfectly suited to helm a Laika film. The filmmaker is currently in high demand, having recently been announced to helm the adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ Whalefall.
Duffield said, “I’ll never forget seeing Coraline on opening night at the AMC Burbank 16 and wondering who these wonderful new geniuses were. I can’t wait to make a movie with them and hopefully live up to their banner, and I couldn’t be more excited to get to go on a new adventure with my friends at Lord Miller.”
Laika was founded in 2005 by President & CEO Travis Knight, with 2009’s Coraline as their debut feature film followed by ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Missing Link. All were nominated for the Academy Award® for Outstanding Animated Feature.
Laika’s President, Live Action Film & Series, Matt Levin, added in a statement, “We’re so excited to partner with Brian and the entire team at Lord Miller on this special film. Brian has such a singular voice, and Crumble perfectly embodies the bold, emotional, and inventive storytelling that we champion at LAIKA. Lord Miller is in a class of its own, and we could not ask for a better creative team to bring this story to life.”
While it’s too early to tell just how much Crumble will veer into the genre, the collaboration between Duffield, Lord Miller, and Laika most certainly has our interest.
Stay tuned for additional details as they arrive.
Movies
‘Backrooms’ Director Kane Parsons Is No Fan of Generative AI: “Defeats the Purpose Entirely for Me”
There has been a lot of talk recently about filmmakers embracing generative AI as part of the filmmaking process, from Darren Aronofsky to Martin Scorsese. But what about filmmakers that are against the use of Gen AI for creative pursuits? You can count 20-year-old Backrooms director Kane Parsons among that group, which should give you some hope for the future.
In a new chat with The Australian, the self-taught young filmmaker makes it crystal clear that he won’t be using generative AI in any of his upcoming filmmaking projects.
“I think I’m in the same boat as most well-adjusted people,” Parsons tells the outlet. “If I could snap my fingers and make generative AI disappear forever, I probably would. Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools. It defeats the purpose entirely for me.”
“What interests me more is interrogating it artistically,” Parsons notes. “We already live in a world where you walk outside and there are billboards and signs that are obvious AI slop. That’s become part of our visual reality. To me, generative AI feels less like innovation than a symptom of a broader cultural and economic rot.”
He explains, “I’m interested in using that iconography in art – not using AI to make the art itself, but examining what it represents. I definitely want to explore it further in future projects.”
Kane Parsons also notes during the interview with The Australian, “… there’s so much at stake and so many genuinely harmful consequences already happening.”
Backrooms marks young prodigy Kane Parsons’ feature directorial debut, and it’s based on his own series of YouTube videos that were brought to life using Blender, the open-source 3D computer graphics software suite. So it’s no surprise that Parsons, who has hand-made his filmmaking career up to this point, isn’t buying into the hoopla around Generative AI.
His debut feature is the #1 movie in the world, so perhaps he’s onto something.
What’s next from Kane Parsons, you ask? Stay tuned…
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