Jordan Peele and Keegan Michael Key have spent the last couple years doing their own things. Key has been working on television while Peele has been working on little independent movies like Get Out. But the now-Oscar winner Peele is reuniting with his long-time partner in a new animated film from stop-motion master Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline). The film, Wendell & Wilde, is being produced for Netflix.
The film will follow a pair of demonic brothers, played by Key & Peele, as they square off with their arch-enemy in order to escape hell. Peele will also be bringing his Oscar-winning pen into the writer’s room: he’s assisting Selick and author Clay Mcleod Chapman in writing the film’s script. The art direction for the film is being handled by Pablo Lobato, an Argentinian artist known for his colorful portraits of celebrities and politicians.
Since the end of Key & Peele, the two actors have largely forged separate paths in Hollywood. Keegan Michael Key has been working as a supporting actor in films like Storks and Why Him and television shows like Archer and Friends From College. He’s appeared in a previous Netflix production, 2017’s Win It All. Jordan Peele has famously moved behind the camera, writing and directing the smash-hit horror film Get Out and starting production on adaptations of horror film Abruptio and crime flick Black Klansman, which will also be a Spike Lee Joint. As if that weren’t enough, he’s also adapting Matt Ruff’s supernatural/gothic horror novel Lovecraft Country with Misha Green (Underground).
Wendell & Wilde will be Key & Peele’s second collaboration since their Peabody-winning Comedy Central sketch show ended in 2015. Their last film, Keanu, was a critical and financial success. The film will also be Henry Selick’s first film released since Coraline in 2009. Netflix has not announced a release date for Wendell & Wilde.