Jun 21, 2024

Leica animates Susanna Clark's novel Piranesi

Despite not releasing a movie in more than 5 years, the Portland-area stop-motion studio Leica has been working behind the scenes.

This week, Travis Knight-run operation added a new title to the upcoming slate. The company announced that it has acquired the rights to Susanna Clark's fantasy novel "Piranesi." The project blends well with other published films and points to a new era of mature and challenging work from boutique studios.

Here's what we know about Piranesi at the moment:

The House of Piranesi is not an ordinary building: its rooms are endless, its corridors are endless, its walls are lined with thousands of statues, each of which is different from all the others. In the maze of halls the sea is imprisoned, the waves thundering the stairs, the rooms are instantly flooded. He understands the flow of the tide, because he understands the pattern of the maze itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is another person in the house - a man called the other, visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help in the study of great and secret knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, other people's evidence emerges, and terrible truths begin to unravel, revealing a world beyond what Piranesi has always known.

Piranesi is a treasure and very important to me. As a filmmaker, I can hardly imagine a more enjoyable experience than wandering through the world Susanna had dreamed of. She's one of my all-time favorite writers, and with Piranesi, Susanna has created beautiful, devastating, and ultimately life-affirming works of art. I am humbled that she chose Leica as her home.

Animation is one of my favorite things 1. I've been inspired by so many animated films; Leica has produced such extraordinary works - like Coraline and Kubo and two strings, beauty and I'm excited that Piranesi has found a home with them, and I can't wait to see what they do.