Netflix has dropped the official trailer forWendell & Wild. Set to debut on Jul 26, 2025, the stop-motion animated film comes from directorHenry Selick, known for helming similarly-animated movies likeThe Nightmare Before Christmas.Wendell & Wildmarks Selick’s first film since 2009’sCoralinewas released, and you can get a sneak peek at the new movie by watching the trailer below.
While Selick directed the film, he co-wrote the screenplay with Oscar-winning filmmaker Jordan Peele (Get Out,Us,Nope). Peele is also part of the voice cast as Wendell alongside hisKey & Peelepartner Keegan-Michael Key, a fellow Academy Award winner, as Wild. The voice cast also includes Lyric Ross, Angela Bassett, James Hong, Tamara Smart, Natalie Martinez, Tantoo Cardinal, Gabrielle Dennis, Igal Naor, David Harewood, Maxine Peake, Ramona Young, Sam Zelaya, Seema Virdi, Gary Gatewood, and Ving Rhames.
Selick produces the film alongside Ellen Goldsmith-Vein for The Gotham Group as well as Peele and Win Rosenfeld for Monkeypaw. Executive producers are Lindsay Williams and Eddie Gamarra for The Gotham Group, Kamil Oshundara, and Ian Cooper for Monkeypaw. Academy Award nominee Bruno Coulais (Les Choristes) provides the music.
Related:Wendell & Wild: Netflix Reveals Star-Studded Cast of Stop-Motion Animated Film
Jordan Peele and Henry Selick Bring You Wendell & Wild
With his movies, director Henry Selick likes to create something creepy, but not to the point where it’s traumatizing for young viewers to watch.The Nightmare Before Christmasis certainly a prime example of that. WhileWendell & Wildis a bit darker comparatively, it’s still a project that Selick approached with a similar mindset.
“It is one of the main challenges on the films I do. They’ve got to be scary enough to raise the hairs on your neck. My plan is to scare but not scar,” Selick previously toldScreen Rant. “But there’s no formula for that. Sometimes it’s a matter of how long you stay on something. In a horror film, you stay on something a very long time to really play something up. In my film, you might see something for four frames. So it’s about timing duration but keeping that tone right.”
On ensuring that things wouldn’t drift into R-rated territory, Selick added, “We do have a PG 13 rating, we wanted that going in. We wanted to be guaranteed that in case we needed it. But I’d say that dramatically, this is darker than anything I’ve done. But as far as scares and so forth, I thinkCoralineactually was a little scarier in a couple of sections. This has more comedy to balance with the darker aspects.”
The official logline for the film reads:
From the delightfully wicked minds of Henry Selick and producer Jordan Peele, comes Wendell & Wild, an animated tale about scheming demon brothers Wendell (Keegan-Michael Key) and Wild (Peele) - who enlist the aid of Kat Elliot - a tough teen with a load of guilt - to summon them to the Land of the Living. But what Kat demands in return leads to a brilliantly bizarre and comedic adventure like no other, an animated fantasy that defies the law of life and death, all told through the handmade artistry of stop motion.
