Jake Johnson has made a career out of playing lovable disasters, but his animation credentials are considerably less chaotic than Nick Miller trying to function like an adult. Best known for playing the hilariously awkward Nick on New Girl, Johnson also voices Peter B. Parker, the older, cynical Spider-Man in the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. His voice credits stretch from Grouchy Smurf in Smurfs: The Lost Village to Ben Hopkins, the foul-tempered basketball coach in Netflix’s Hoops, which he also executive produced.

And while Johnson has a particular fondness for one Spider-Man animation, his appreciation for the medium also seems to extend to its stranger corners, where handcrafted charm meets the delightfully eerie atmosphere of Coraline.

Johnson’s praise came while he was promoting LAIKA Studios’ Wildwood, but the conversation took a detour when MovieWeb’s Joe Deckelmeier tried to get him talking about Peter B. Parker’s role in the upcoming Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. Rather than offer spoilers, the actor turned the question into an enthusiastic endorsement of animation’s creative possibilities.

“They're spectacular, and they're so different, but I think they're both so special… You're missing out on Wildwood,” he said.

Johnson also made a pointed case for watching Wildwood on the big screen instead of waiting for its eventual streaming release. For a film built around intricate 3D stop-motion animation and Coraline's makers, the theatrical experience is part of the appeal. His warning was less a sales pitch than a reminder that some visual experiences deserve more than a casual scroll through a streaming catalogue.

That distinction matters when comparing LAIKA’s painstaking, tactile approach with the kinetic comic-book aesthetics of the Spider-Verse films. Both demonstrate how animation can push beyond familiar visual conventions without sacrificing storytelling as Johnson pointed out to MovieWeb. Johnson’s enthusiasm reflects a medium with room for contrasting artistic identities, rather than one single formula for cinematic spectacle.

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With Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse getting encouraging updates from Jake Johnson, his enthusiasm for Wildwood also raises questions about AI and animation’s future, and his thought on it.

If there is one thing Jake Johnson would rather see flop than succeed, it is an animated movie built around generative AI. The New Girl star has openly criticised Hollywood executives for chasing cheaper production methods, warning that the technology could undermine traditional artistic work. He has even wished commercial failure upon studios that attempt to replace animators with automated shortcuts. 

“Whatever studio makes their first AI animated movie with their hacky producers, I hope those do really badly,” he said while declaring his stance.

His frustration is rooted in the human labor behind animation, from the countless hours artists spend crafting individual details to the creative decisions that give a film its personality. For Johnson, supporting that work means standing up for the people behind it.

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Do Jake Johnson's favorites make it to your top list of animated works? Let us know in the comments!