Laika is expanding into the world of live-action filmmaking for the first time, with an adaptation of John Brownlow ’s upcoming debut novel, Seventeen .

Known for its groundbreaking work in stop-motion animation, the Oregon studio secured rights to Seventeen following an intense bidding war. The option announcement was made Wednesday by Laika’s president and CEO Travis Knight .

“For the past 15 years, Laika has been committed to making movies that matter,” he said. “Across mediums and genres, our studio has fused art, craft and technology in service of bold, distinctive and enduring stories. With Seventeen , Laika is taking that philosophy in an exciting new direction.”

“ Seventeen is a stiff cocktail of wicked wit, exhilarating action and raw emotion,” Knight added. “John has such a wonderfully unique voice. He’s crafted a brilliant universe with its own powerful identity. Seventeen is a thriller with soul, a sinuous adrenaline-fueled actioner with a sincere heart beating underneath its rippling pectorals.”

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Well known for his work in film and TV, Brownlow previously penned the Sylvia Plath biopic and romantic drama Sylvia , starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig, along with four-episode limited series Fleming , which starred Dominic Cooper as James Bond author Ian Fleming. Additionally, he wrote and executive produced BBC’s three-part limited series The Miniaturist , which starred Golden Globe winner Anya Taylor-Joy ( The Queen’s Gambit ).

“I am absolutely thrilled to be developing Seventeen for the screen with Laika,” said Brownlow. “As a longtime fan of Laika’s movies for their vision, heart, craft, intelligence and ambition, I couldn’t have hoped for the novel or the universe it inhabits to have found a better or more exciting home. I’m beyond honored to be part of their plans for the future.”

Founded by Knight in 2005, Laika has thus far scored Oscar nominations for each of its animated features— Coraline, ParaNorman , The Boxtrolls , Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link— along with a Scientific and Technology Oscar plaque, which recognized its innovations in 3D printing. Receiving an additional Oscar nom for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, Kubo also won the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film.

The studio’s most recent feature, 2019’s Missing Link, won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Film, and it is currently in production on its sixth animated feature.

In retrospect, Laika’s live-action ambitions are not entirely surprising. After making his feature debut in stop-motion with 2016’s Kubo , Knight went on to direct Paramount’s live-action Transformers pic Bumblebee . Subsequently, the three-time Oscar nominee boarded Warner Bros’ adaptation of The Six Billion Dollar Man , with Mark Wahlberg attached to star, though that long-in-the-works feature remains in pre-production.

UK publisher Hodder & Stoughton preemptively acquired worldwide publishing rights to Seventeen, which Hanover Square will publish in the U.S. in 2022.

Laika was represented in the film deal by CAA. Brownlow is represented by George Davis at Nelson Davis LLP, Jessica Sykes at Independent Talent Group and CAA.

Laika, the groundbreaking animation studio behind films like Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls , Kubo and the Two Strings, and Missing Link, is expanding into the world of live-action films.

Deadline reported that The Oregon studio secured the screen rights to Seventeen from Hodder & Stoughton after an intense bidding war. The UK publishing house will also partner with Hanover Square in the US to publish the story in 2022. The story will be John Brownlow’s — known for his work on Sylvia, Fleming, and the Miniaturist — debut novel.

“For the past 15 years, Laika has been committed to making movies that matter,” said Laika’s president and CEO Travis Knight. “Across mediums and genres, our studio has fused art, craft, and technology in service of bold, distinctive and enduring stories. With Seventeen, Laika is taking that philosophy in an exciting new direction. Seventeen is a stiff cocktail of wicked wit, exhilarating action and raw emotion. John has such a wonderfully unique voice. He’s crafted a brilliant universe with its own powerful identity. Seventeen is a thriller with soul, a sinuous adrenaline-fueled actioner with a sincere heart beating underneath its rippling pectorals.”

Transformers fans may recognize Knight’s name. In addition to his duties as CEO, he made his directorial debut on Kubo and the Two Strings and then made his way to Paramount’s Bumblebee . While interesting anecdotally, it also helps explain this new adventure into live-action films for the studio.

Not a lot is known about the future of the film, as the rights were just purchased. However, we do know that John Brownlow will be partnering closely with Laika to bring his story to life.

Here’s what’s in store for the future of the Transformer movies .

Without fail, each year brings a film or two that makes people ask, “How was that nominated for an Oscar?!”

While it’s easy to imagine the Academy Awards being decided in a room all at once by some shadow organization, Oscar’s 23 categories are decided much more independently from one another. Each category’s nominations are voted on by that specific branch of the Academy — so you don’t have actors voting on Makeup and Hairstyling, or cinematographers voting on Costume Design — and then the entire Academy votes on the winners in each category. So when a strange outlier nomination like Fifty Shades of Grey or Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa happens, know that they aren’t made equally. A cool Production Design and a cringey Adapted Screenplay nomination aren’t the same thing, because they come from two separate groups with completely different tastes.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has roughly 10,000 members across 20 distinct branches. Several of Oscars’ branches only vote on Best Picture and don’t have their own category: associates, casting directors, executives, marketing and public relations, members-at-large, and producers. While not having a category makes it impossible to gauge those branches’ taste, they do still have a significant impact on Best Picture, because together they make up just over 25 percent of the entire Academy. So if you hate the Best Picture lineup, I guess blame them.

Otherwise, good and bad nominations alike are the result of the whims and taste of that category’s membership more so than the Academy as a whole. Best International Feature and Live Action Short have their own processes that have changed over the years, but no one group is assigned to them, so those categories are a little more fluid than the rest in terms of determining who makes the best decision with their nominations. But based on recent Oscar history, it’s easy to tell the most discerning branches from the least. Here are the branches of the Academy ranked by their taste from worst to best:

13. Music

Quick, name five nominated Original Songs from the past decade that aren’t from a Disney film or “Shallow.” Bonus points will be awarded if you can name all five from the music branch’s almost pathological obsession with songs from documentaries. (And, as “Alone Yet Not Alone” and its revoked nomination showed, this branch’s campaigning practices can be shady as hell. Like, “the Academy has to keep implementing new campaign rules” kind of shady.) Each year brings new calls from Oscar obsessives to retire the category, though that’s been quieter this year thanks to a less embarrassing set of nominees. After 12 nominations, does this category still exist for the sole purpose of terrorizing Diane Warren by dangling a win in front of her every year? Perhaps.

The only thing saving their reputation is that they also vote for Best Original Score. It’s a category that has its fair share of over-nominated favorite composers, but it’s begun to embrace new talents like Mica Levi ( Jackie ) and Nicholas Britell ( Moonlight ; If Beale Street Could Talk ). But the Original Song nominations of the past 20 years are so wildly off the mark (like Warren’s 11th nomination last year for the laughably maudlin “I’m Standing With You” from Breakthrough , or Sam Smith’s shocking win for their abysmal, whiny Bond anthem “Writing’s on the Wall”) as to make the Music branch’s standing unsalvageable. Is the solution to have an intervention between the branch’s composers and songwriters? Music branch, why are you like this? (Stream “Húsavík” on Spotify, though.)

12. Actors

Plain and simple, too many of Oscar’s fiascos have the acting branch to blame; the years of Oscars So White alone make the case for this low ranking. In terms of nominations fueled by narrative (“Overdue!” “They looked just like that real person!” “She’s Meryl!”), the actors are the most likely branch to make it about something else other than the work itself. Even when someone surprising or richly deserving shows up in an acting category, it may have taken an aggressive and extremely savvy campaign to get them enough attention for a nomination. It’s easy to focus on the universally loved and exciting nominated performances, but bad (or just lazy) acting nominations often reveal the worst truths about the Academy. If you wish to argue with me, here are some recent nominated performers playing real people that you have entirely forgotten about or might wish to: Bryan Cranston in Trumbo . Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents . Kenneth Branagh in My Week With Marilyn . Viggo Mortensen in Green Book . Morgan Freeman in Invictus . Matt Damon in Invictus . Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland . Christian Bale in The Big Short . Christian Bale in Vice . Amy Adams in Vice . Sam Rockwell in Vice . Should I keep going, or …?

11. Makeup and Hairstyling

Home to some of your least favorite nominees like Norbit , and winners like Suicide Squad , this category’s recent history is filled with lots of old-age makeup, wild wigs, and yet more fat suits — making this year’s nominee Hillbilly Elegy a triple threat. Though they are the branch most likely to expand their field of vision far beyond the usual Oscar suspects ( The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared , anyone?), those nominations are more about checking one of those aforementioned boxes than making a smart choice. Their glaring aversion to horror and creature design makes them seem pretty dull when wild inventions like Suspiria miss out. Were they scared off by Cate Blanchett’s “That’s gross” response when presenting The Wolfman in 2011? Recently, this category went from producing three nominees to five, making room for things to get more interesting in the future.

10. Costume

To quote the genius costume designer Sandy Powell during her “I already have two of these” Oscar speech for The Young Victoria , I’m dedicating this ranking to “the costume designers that don’t do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals.” There may be loads of inarguably great opulence in the category’s recent history, but you have to give the costume designers a strongly worded demerit for their disinterest in smart contemporary costuming. This century, their only modern-set (and non-fantasy) nominations have gone to The Devil Wears Prada , La La Land , and I Am Love .

What gives? This is the smallest branch (aside from category-less casting directors), and they are also one of the most guilty of playing favorites by nominating the same people over and over. For example, the 2014 nominees had a combined history of 29 career nominations among them. Alexandra Byrne was nominated twice for costuming essentially the same story of Elizabeth I’s embattlements with Mary Queen of Scots with Elizabeth: The Golden Age and … well, Mary, Queen of Scots . It’s not so much that their choices are wrong, just that they are uninspired.

9. Film Editors

Best Film Editing is a crucial category in bolstering a film’s Best Picture chances for a reason: pacing, structure, and narrative flow all impact how much a film affects its audience. But it is also because this branch is maybe the most deferential to films that have existing Best Picture heat, and regularly nominates ones that aren’t exactly celebrated for their form. It’s hard to imagine that they would have honored films like the by-the-numbers Green Book or messy American Hustle , if they weren’t already threats for the biggest prize in their awards season. In the past decade, they have only had five nominees that weren’t nominated for Best Picture. It would be fair to say this is a branch that doesn’t think for themselves, which can still lead to incredible editing achievements like Mad Max: Fury Road or widely derided ones like Bohemian Rhapsody . Having taste requires a little more audacity.

8. Sound

The good news is you no longer have to Google the difference between sound mixing and sound editing, because the Academy merged the two into simply Best Sound this year. (RIP Best Sound Editing, 1963–2019, gone but not forgotten.) With that in mind, this branch’s choices could either become way worse or even better in the years to come. Some of their most unique choices that the other Academy branches overlooked were films they nominated in Sound Editing, and for good reason — Drive , A Quiet Place , All Is Lost , for example. Will reducing the categories the Sound branch votes for result in fewer deserving underdog films? While this year’s crop points to “no,” their stand-alone nominee Greyhound was one of the biggest head-scratchers of the entire ballot. They could definitely stand to look further outside of the expected soundscapes of booms, zooms, and gunfire (no branch loves war or outer space more), but their sampling of Best Picture nominees is often smartly chosen, like the immersive nominated sound design of Roma and Birdman . Here’s hoping for more intimately crafted sound experiences like Sound of Metal to continue to be nominated!

7. Visual Effects

Clearly at the biggest disadvantage this year with few big-budget studio pictures to choose from, we’ll just overlook this year’s Visual Effects nominees. This branch is one of the few (along with the Music and Makeup and Hairstyling branches, among others) that reaches their ultimate nominations through a bake-off process, producing a list of 15 eligible films from which to pick the final five. Say what you will about what appears on these longlists (recent near-nominees have included such eyesores as Welcome to Marwen and Cats ), but this is a narrowing process designed for a better end result. Visual Effects does it best, and all of the branches would be smart to do the same. Though this is the category most likely to be aligned with the top-grossing movies of a year, that doesn’t mean that the visual effects artists have voted strictly along with the box office — even Marvel movies miss here half the time. In that regard, they usually avoid embarrassment, but they would be a lot cooler if they looked further outside of the box more often, like their rare nominations for animated films like Kubo and the Two Strings or the more “supporting” effects of eventual winner Ex Machina .

6. Cinematographers

On top of not nominating a female cinematographer until 2017 ( Mudbound ’s Rachel Morrison), the cinematographers are only rivaled by the costume designers for repeatedly nominating the same people year after year. We love you Roger Deakins and Emmanuel Lubezki, but some greats like Bradford Young and Greig Fraser are still waiting for a second nomination. Most branches have their own soft spots for certain styles, but the cinematographers seemingly made it illegal to not nominate any movie shot in black-and-white. Even so, the least memorable of the category’s recent nominees fully make sense as nominees based on their imagery — the cinematographers have yet to really produce a bad nominee, just some boring ones, like Darkest Hour or War Horse . Their taste is inarguable, but it lacks an edge.

5. Directors

The infamous “lone director” slot (a film nominated for its director but not in Best Picture) carries a lot of weight for modern perceptions that the Directors branch is much cooler than you. Thomas Vinterberg’s nod this year for Another Round (after Paweł Pawlikowski showed up for Cold War in 2018) added to a growing sense that their divergent picks will continue to come from Eurocinema. Historically, this Oscar phenomena tends to reward films considered too gutsy for the more conservative Academy, boldly picking controversial fare like Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ . The directors have come through not once but twice for David Lynch, with Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive scoring their only nominations for the maestro.

But lone director nods create a myth of taste rather than proof of it. Although their small membership has yielded some surprises, the directors are also the most likely to simply go with the Best Picture flow, especially since the big prize expanded past past nominees in 2009. Very recent years have seen their picks becoming less white and male (Spike Lee was finally nominated in 2018, while this year marks the first year two women directors were nominated), but over the decade-plus since that expansion, they have produced some bland autopilot nominees to rival any branch of the Academy. You maybe don’t get to brag about nominating Pedro Almodóvar for Talk to Her when you’re also nominating Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game .

4. Designers Avatar or Black Panther , this branch will reliably favor having a lot of eye candy to look at. Their laziest choices? Guys, they love space movies ( Gravity , Interstellar , The Martian — you remember those for their sets, right?).

But unlike the Costume Design branch, the (Production) Designers should actually be credited with making unexpected and increasingly smarter choices outside of period epics and big-budget spectacles — especially when nominating environments that play a role in the stories they tell. Arguably their first leap in rewarding this was Her , for K.K. Barrett’s approximation of loneliness reflected near-future city life. But their smartest example of this was nominating Parasite — the Parks’s home was among the most narratively important set designs in recent memory, and though the Academy loved the film, the other craft branches mostly overlooked its brilliant design elements.

3. Short Films and Feature Animation Wolfwalkers , but Soul will be smooth sailing to a win, another notch in Pixar’s dominance over the category), the branch’s nominations … kind of don’t. Sure, there are plenty of big studio animation movies among the category’s (brief) history. But unless you are a sheep, dragon, or Pixar character that isn’t a car, they probably won’t go for your sequel, despite how many animated sequels pull in huge box office. In recent years, their final five instead get filled with stronger work from animation houses like Laika (home to Coraline and ParaNorman ) or Cartoon Saloon ( Wolfwalkers and The Breadwinner ), or even further outside of the mainstream. Considering Animated Feature is pulling from a smaller pool of movies, they still manage a higher batting average than Best Picture.

In the Feature category, a nomination for a real dud like Shark Tale isn’t all that common anymore. Among the Shorts, you’ll find as many recent avant-garde examples (such as Don Hertzfeldt’s science-fiction World of Tomorrow and the wordless, dark stop-motion of 2019’s Daughter ) as ones backed by Disney. Naturally, they may be working with a smaller pool of films than the other branches, but they can be trusted to make the most of their options.

2. Writers

The Writers branch often recognizes the movies you wish were in the Best Picture lineup. Never forget they nominated some of your faves — Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, Alfonso Cuarón, — before the Academy at large did. Your recent “Justice for [X]” under-rewarded faves are most likely to be recognized by the writers, even if their recognition can sometimes read as a consolation prize to films that struggle to break into Best Director and Best Picture. This was even more true before Best Picture expanded beyond five nominees, but the writing branch still regularly plays Oscar lifeguard to make sure that films like First Reformed , Straight Outta Compton , and The Lobster still get their due. Films deemed to be too weird or too violent or too hip for Oscar are not so hamstrung with the Writers branch; if they aren’t the very best branch, they are certainly the least square.

1. Documentary

The Documentary branch is another that votes via a bake-off system, and every year produces at least one brutal omission in either the longlist or nomination phase. This year’s dearly departed include the beloved Dick Johnson Is Dead , but past victims have included Stories We Tell , Weiner , and Blackfish . But it’s not that the documentarians vote for lesser fare than films that have been championed elsewhere. It’s that this branch seems to make an effort to include a wide range of nonfiction film, with an increasingly global sampling that stretches commonplace conventions of what a documentary looks like. In this category, a film doesn’t have as much weight simply because it’s popular, and their nominees show a branch looking to provide a category where no five films are alike. Even when some of the films are taxing or more conventional, it can’t be denied that the docs deliver broadly strong lineups without fail. The best sign of taste is that Best Documentary is never entirely predictable and never too focused on only one thing. And if a doc can’t make it here, there’s always Original Song.

Travis Knight is looking to make Bumblebee standalone, away from Michael Bay’s work with the Transformers franchise . Filming has recently wrapped for the project and it’s currently in post-production, where Knight plans to make an emotional story based around a girl and her Transformer in the 1980s come to life with live-action acting and a mixture of CGI. The director has big shoes to fill and expectations to meet for the fans hoping that the movie won’t be just some gigantic special effects montage with huge explosions everywhere, devoid of any real story, but Travis Knight seems to know what he’s up against and how to work against it.

Travis Knight is best known for his work at Laika Animation and Kubo and the Two Strings , so there should be no problem getting the CGI Bumblebee to come to life on the big screen. The movie will be Knight’s live-action directorial debut and he plans on using a lot of what he has learned in his decades working in animation to the Bumblebee movie. When asked about how he was going to distinguish himself from Michael Bay, the director said that he wants to bring in an “artful blend of light and dark.” Knight explains.

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“I wanted to approach this massive, expansive franchise and really focus in on a tiny corner of the canvas. Everything I’ve tried to do at Laika, searching for an artful blend of darkness and light, intensity and warmth, humor and heart, I wanted to bring to the Transformers franchise.”

Bumblebee takes place in the 1980s , which will follow the yellow Autobot several decades before he met Sam Witwicky. Fans have been looking forward to the movie in hopes that Travis Knight will help to bring the character back to his 1980s Transformers roots, which is no easy task. As previously noted, the movie recently wrapped filming and star Hailee Steinfeld is excited at the work that she put into the Bumblebee movie. The actress admitted that it was hard working with a tennis ball on a stick that represented her co-star, but she is very confident in Travis Knight’s abilities to bring the character to life.

Unlike the previous Transformers movies , which have all been grand global adventures involving saving the world in one way or another with a bunch of explosions, Bumblebee ‘s scale won’t be nearly as large, instead telling a more personal story. Hailee Steinfeld has echoed that the movie is an emotional tale between a girl and her Transformer and that the script delivers as promised. Travis Knight hopes to achieve the same tonal balance (the light and shade) he’s achieved on his animated projects to give the fans a Transformers movie that won’t come off as being too similar to what Michael Bay has made pretty much every time.

Travis Knight has his work cut out for him but it already looks like he’s on the right page and has already made something that will be wildly different than anything that Michael Bay has ever done. However, it will be interesting to see some character development from a Volkswagen Beetle that transforms into a giant robot with his 18-year old high school mechanic friend. The Bumblebee movie hits theaters on December 21st, 2018, so Travis Knight still has plenty of time to craft his story. You can read more about how Travis Knight looks to distinguish the Bumblebee movie from Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise via Cinemablend .

Topics: Bumblebee , Transformers

Passover, the Festival of Freedom, celebrates the liberation of Jewish people from slavery in Egypt.

It is one of the most important festivals in the Jewish calendar, and families around the world will be celebrating today.

Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, traditionally lasts for seven days. This year it began yesterday evening (27 March) and it will finish in the evening of 4 April.

The holiday celebrates the liberation of the Israelites, who, according to Exodus, had been slaves in Egypt for 210 years.

God promised he would release them – but the Pharaoh continued to refuse.

God sent ten plagues demonstrating his power, each worse than the last, warning that Pharaoh must release the slaves.

He turned the river Nile to blood, sent locusts, diseased livestock and eventually killed the first born son of each family.

Before carrying out this tenth and final plague, God told the Jewish families to put lamb’s blood on the doors of their homes so the plague would pass by them, keeping them safe. This is why the day is called Passover.

After the death of the first born sons in the tenth plague, Pharaoh finally agreed to release the Jewish slaves.

Passover celebrations begin on the 15th day of Nisan, which means the date changes every year.

With the UK having the 5th largest Jewish population, there is estimated to be around 300,000 Jewish people in the UK who will celebrate this special day.

How is Passover celebrated?

The evening before the festival begins, Jews have a special meal with friends and family called a Seder.

Four cups of wine are placed on the table reminding Jews of the four times God had promised freedom to them. They begin with the first cup of wine and recite the Kiddush blessing.

They leave the door open for Elijah, as Jews believe that Elijah will appear to announce the coming of Messiah.

The meal is also known as a special service, it includes the story of Exodus being told from a book called Haggadah. Family and friends around the dinner table take turns reading from this book, reading aloud in both Hebrew and English.

They enjoy a special passover meal which includes six different components on a Seder plate, each representing a different part of the story when the Israelites were slaves.

1. Chazeret – such as a romaine lettuce or endive, representing the bitterness of slavery
2. Beitzah – a hard boiled egg, the symbol of mourning
3. Charoset – a sweet, brown paste made of fruit and nuts, representing the mortar that the Israelites made for building bricks
4. Maror – a bitter herb, made from horseradish, similar to Chazeret they symbolise the bitter suffering
5. Z’roa – a lamb bone, representing the lamb that was scarified and taken to the temple the night before the Israelites left Egypt
6. Karpas – Celery stalks or parsley dipped into a bowl of salted water. These symbolise the spring harvest and tears when they were slaves

Also included in their meal are flat breads called Matzah.

When the Israelites left Egypt, they had made bread for the journey but were in such a hurry to leave they didn’t have time to let the bread rise.

The book tells them what food to eat, what order to eat these foods in and what they each represent.

During the meal everyone has a cushion they lean on, this reminds them of their heritage and that they are now free people, no longer slaves.

A lot of songs are included in this special service, children are encouraged to ask questions and the family recites the Hallel prayer together at the end whilst drinking their fourth and final cup of wine.

Seven to eight days after the first Seder meal Jewish people will refrain from eating gluten foods such as bread, cakes and muffins.

While the first and last day of Passover are the major holidays, it is still celebrated throughout the week, gathering with friends, family, going on outings and enjoying picnics together.

How do you wish someone Happy Passover

To wish somebody a happy Passover in Hebrew, you can say “Chag Sameach” which translates as “happy holiday”.

You can also say “Chag Pesach sameach” which means “happy Passover”.