Their sketch comedy show on Comedy Central may be over (which is a tragedy we all need to accept) but Key & Peele are far from done working together. They have a number of different projects in the hopper that they’re currently working on together and they just added yet another one. They’ll be working with famed stop-motion animation director Henry Selick on a new stop-motion feature called Wendell and Wild.
Wendell and Wild will tell the story of a pair of demon brothers who go head to head with their arch-nemesis, a demon fighting nun, and her two goth teen sidekicks. If the premise, and the fact that Key & Peele are involved, doesn’t make it obvious the film will be a comedy. According to Variety, Jordan Peele will co-write the script with Selick, who will also direct and produce the film.
The pair could not have teamed with anybody better in the field of stop-motion animation. Selick was the director for The Nightmare Before Christmas as well as Coraline. He had been involved in a film called The Shadow King with Disney before the studio decided not to move forward. He’s currently working with Neil Gaiman on another project, a spiritual follow-up to Coraline as Gaiman wrote the original story there as well. Based on Selick’s previous work Wendell and Wild will likely be a dark and twisted tale as well as a funny one. That just seems to be the way the man works. It also seems to be the way stop-motion works, the vast majority of films use fairly dark subject matter. A laugh out loud comedy would actually make for an interesting change of pace.
Key & Peele have been doing their share of voice acting in animation as both have appeared on Bob’s Burgers in the past and Keegan Michael-Key is also voicing a character in the upcoming Angry Birds movie.
It’s not specifically stated that Key & Peele will be the voices of the two brothers in the film, but that’s likely where the safe money is. The pair has looked at traditional animation in the past as a creative outlet; they previously had an idea to turn their characters of Vandaveon and Mike into an animated series for Comedy Central. They’ve also optioned their Substitute Teacher character from their sketch show for a potential motion picture. Both of these projects have been silent for some time so it's not clear if they're still in development.
Key & Peele are hilarious together so any opportunity to see (or hear) them again is a welcome one. It will also be great to see what new crazy ideas Selick has put together in the world of stop motion animation.
