LAIKA has announced that its award-winning stop-motion animated film, “ParaNorman,” will return for a one-week theatrical engagement this Halloween season.
As with the record-breaking 15th Anniversary 2024 re-release of “Coraline” in 2D and RealD 3D, LAIKA will bring the remastered “ParaNorman” (originally released in 2012) to global audiences in partnership with Trafalgar Releasing in international markets premiering Thursday, October 23, 2025, and Fathom Entertainment in the US premiering Saturday, October 25.
“ParaNorman,” which garnered multiple awards, including Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe nominations, as well as multiple ANNIE Awards, was written by Chris Butler (“Missing Link”) and directed by Butler and Sam Fell (“Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget”). The film tells the story of Norman, an 11-year-old boy who can see and talk to ghosts, making him an outcast in his small town of Blithe Hollow. When a 300-year-old witch’s curse unleashes a zombie apocalypse, Norman is the only one who can stop it. Forced to team up with his older sister Courtney, the school bully Alvin, and his only friend Neil (along with Neil’s jock brother Mitch), Norman embarks on a quest to stop the curse. As they confront the rising dead and an angry mob of townspeople, Norman uncovers the truth behind the witch’s curse and the historical injustice that led to it.
The re-release this fall will offer the film in stunning, newly remastered RealD 3D and 2D formats. The return of “ParaNorman” to theaters will launch a year-long 20th Anniversary celebration of LAIKA, which was announced today at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
The re-release will be accompanied by a new, CG animated short film, “ParaNorman: The Thrifting.” Directed by LAIKA’s lead character designer Thibault LeClercq and written by Chris Butler, the short features the voice work of “Stranger Things” star Finn Wolfhard and Anna Kendrick reprising her role of Norman’s older sister, Courtney Babcock. The short was produced in association with Passion Pictures.
“‘ParaNorman’ was a breakthrough film for LAIKA — emotionally rich, visually daring, and proudly weird in all the right ways,” said LAIKA’s Chief Marketing & Operations Officer David Burke. “Bringing it back to theaters in stunning remastered 3D, paired with a brand-new short film, is an invitation for audiences to rediscover the heart and humor of Norman’s world — or experience it for the first time. Today, horror has become a shared family ritual, and ‘ParaNorman’ sits right at the intersection of spooky and meaningful. It’s the perfect ‘starter horror’ — a gateway into genre storytelling that’s as thoughtful as it is thrilling.”
The successful re-release of “Coraline” last year signaled an audience desire for repertory cinema as moviegoers rediscover older films, especially accessible horror titles that families can enjoy together. “Coraline” scored $56M in worldwide box office, making it one of the biggest global film re-releases of the past decade and the highest-grossing stop-motion movie of all time.
