Laika Entertainment House
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| Private | |
| Industry | Animation, film production |
| Genre | Animation |
| Predecessor | Will Vinton Studios |
| Founded | June 23, 2005 |
| Headquarters | Northwest Bennett Street, Hillsboro, Oregon, United States |
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Key people
|
Chairman: Phil Knight President & CEO: Travis Knight |
| Products | Films |
| Owner | Phil Knight |
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Number of employees
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394 (2015) |
| Website | www |
Laika Entertainment, LLC., or simply Laika, is an American stop-motion animation studio specializing in feature films, commercial content for all media, music videos and short films. The studio is best known for its stop-motion feature films, Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings, all co-produced in partnership with Universal Pictures through its Focus Features label. It is owned by Nike co-founder and chairman Phil Knight and is located in Oregon's Portland metropolitan area. Knight's son, Travis, acts as Laika's president and CEO.
Laika had two divisions, Laika Entertainment for feature films and Laika/house for commercial content. The studio spun off the commercial division in July 2014 to focus on feature film production exclusively. The new independent commercial division is now called HouseSpecial.
In the late 1990s, Will Vinton Studios, known for its stop-motion films and commercials, sought funds for more feature-length films and brought in outside investors, which included Nike, Inc. owner Phil Knight. In 1998, Knight made his initial investment and his son Travis started work at the studio as an animator. In 2002, Phil Knight acquired the financially struggling Will Vinton Studios to pursue feature-length productions. The following year, Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, joined the studio as a supervising director. In July 2005, the successor to Will Vinton Studios, Laika, was founded, and named after Laika, the dog sent to space by the Soviet Union in 1957. It opened two divisions: Laika Entertainment for feature films and Laika/house for commercial work, such as advertisements and music videos. They also announced their first projects, the stop-motion film Coraline (based on the book of the same name), and the CGI animated film Jack & Ben's Animated Adventure.
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Wikipedia