The soundtrack for Wildwood, the latest stop-motion feature from LAIKA, arrives digitally from Decca Records on October 23 — the same day the film opens in U.S. theaters. The score is by Dario Marianelli, Academy Award winner for Atonement, and the album closes with "The Better Part of Bravery," a new song by The Decemberists, the band fronted by the novel's author Colin Meloy. CD and double-vinyl editions are reported to follow in the weeks after the digital release.

My first reaction to the news: Marianelli and LAIKA again — wonderful. This pairing has history.

The Boxtrolls, Kubo, and Now Wildwood

Marianelli previously scored LAIKA's The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings, and he also worked with director Travis Knight on the live-action Bumblebee. That makes Wildwood the pair's second LAIKA film together, and their third collaboration overall. Film Music Reporter first reported Marianelli's involvement back in May 2022, so this music has been about four and a half years in the making before reaching listeners.

Stop-motion is painstaking handwork, with puppets moved frame by frame, and long production schedules come with the territory; the composer lives with that timeline too. Marianelli says working on Meloy's imaginative world and LAIKA's handcrafted animation was a joy. Hand-made images matched with hand-played orchestra — the chemistry between this studio and this composer has already been proven twice.

Reading the 26-Track, ~65-Minute Track List

The released track list runs 26 tracks: 25 score cues totaling about 61 minutes 17 seconds, plus the Decemberists song, for roughly 65 minutes 42 seconds in all. Just following the titles in order reveals a lot about the story's shape.

  • Opening (tracks 1–6): Starting with "The Impassable Wilderness," then "Meet the McKeels," "Into the Wild Wood," and "A Wildwood Chase," as heroine Prue steps into the forest. The pre-released "Journey to South Wood" sits here as well.
  • Middle (tracks 7–18): "Pittock Mansion" names a real Portland landmark, a reminder that the book's setting is an impassable wilderness bordering the city of Portland. The longest cue is track 12, "Alexei's Story" (4:48), likely home to a key flashback. Short pieces like "The Ivy's Waltz" (1:14) add nice contrast.
  • Finale (tracks 19–25): Four battle cues in a row — "Three Armies," "Into Battle," "ATTACK!," and "The Plinth" — totaling about 11 minutes 53 seconds, followed by "Victory," "Time to Go Back," and "Homecoming," a quiet journey home.

The finale's layout is worth noting: after more than 11 minutes of battle music come three homecoming cues that together run under six minutes. Pulling back gently after the big climax recalls the way Marianelli handled the afterglow in Kubo.

Why the Author's Band Singing the End Credits Matters

The album's most distinctive feature is surely track 26. The source novel Wildwood was Colin Meloy's 2011 debut, illustrated by his wife, illustrator Carson Ellis. Now the author's own band has written the film's end-credits song.

Meloy says the story has been part of his life for many years, that writing the end-credits song let him return to that world, and that he finds the song's role in the film's ending deeply meaningful. A forest tale written by an indie-folk storyteller, voiced in the film by an Oscar winner's orchestra, then closed once more by the author's band — a full circle of book, film, and music that is rare to find.

A Starry Voice Cast — Hoping for a Japan Release

The voice cast is led by Peyton Elizabeth Lee as Prue and Jacob Tremblay as Curtis, joined by Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Awkwafina, Tom Waits, Richard E. Grant, and more. The screenplay is by Chris Butler (ParaNorman). Fathom Entertainment releases the film in U.S. theaters on October 23.

A Japanese release has not yet been announced, but the soundtrack can be heard via streaming first. Start with "Journey to South Wood," then listen through all 26 tracks to hear how a handcrafted forest sounds. For score fans, it's an album that shows where Marianelli's "LAIKA sound," extending from Kubo, stands today.