Wolves in the Walls, the terrifying children’s book from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, is getting its own VR experience. Created as one of the last projects of the now-defunct Oculus Story Studio, Wolves in the Walls VR is making its debut at Sundance Film Festival this year.
Oculus Story Studios created three VR experiences before Facebook shuttered the studio back in May; Dear Angelica, Lost, and Henry. The studio’s highly-polished experiences were created to showcase the promise of gripping VR narratives, and while the mission was more or less completed, Wolf in the Walls VR was left unfinished.
According to a report by Variety, most of the Story Studio team couldn’t accept that Gaiman’s VR adaptation was left unfinished. Despite officially disbanding, a majority of the team stayed together to quietly work on the project, which fortuitously received additional funding from Oculus as well.
Wolves in the Walls follows the ever-imaginative Lucy as she hears wolves crawling in the walls of her family’s home. Stepping into the shoes of Lucy’s imaginary friend, executive producer Saschka Unseld says the experience aims to solve the puzzle of “how to organically combine a compelling and emotional story with interactive worlds and characters.”
New York-based immersive theater company Third Rail Projects developed the story’s choreography, and was directed by DreamWorks Animation veteran Pete Billington and Jessica Shamash, known for her work at Pixar.
“After Henry, we knew that we wanted to created a deeply interactive character. Something that wasn’t passive or bound to the rectangular format of traditional media,” Billington said in a prepared statement.
“Lucy was our friend. We cared for her. She felt more than a 3D character,” Shamash added.
The first chapter of Wolves in the Walls VR is set to premiere at Sundance in January, with two additional chapters currently in the works, although release date is uncertain at this time.
