Dakota Fanning’s Coraline is drawing streaming viewers again, 17 years after its 2009 release.
Meanwhile, StreamScope’s latest accessible snapshot places it inside the top five on three American platforms. Specifically, its October 27 chart lists Coraline third on Hulu, fourth on Peacock, and fifth on HBO Max. Beyond those rankings, the film carries a 91% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Dakota Fanning’s Coraline needed 28 matching puppets
Behind the scenes, director Henry Selick’s team built a world viewers could almost reach out and touch. Instead of using one model for every shot, artists created 28 identical Coraline puppets.
Typically, ten people spent three to four months building a single version of the character. Together, those copies allowed animators to work on different scenes without waiting for the same puppet.
Beyond their tiny faces, the figures needed clothes that behaved like real outfits. For that reason, the costume team used small weights and wires to help fabric move naturally.
Coraline’s costumes were too small for Barbie clothes
Even buying doll outfits offered no shortcut for costume designer Deborah Cook. In an interview with the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, she explained why everything required custom work.
“No purchased garments were used at all, not even doll clothes, as they’re actually far too big and wouldn’t fit our characters or have as much attention to detail paid in their making or in their choice or scale of fabric,” Cook said. “Barbie’s jeans, for example, are more than twice the size of Coraline’s.”
Additionally, miniature knitter Althea Crome created clothing using needles barely thicker than human hair. Afterward, the team lined the blue star sweater with latex to keep matching versions in shape.
Finally, Coraline wears seven costumes across the film, giving the makers several different looks to build.
