Wallace and Groomit (2005)

THE WALLACE & GROMIT MOVIE
also known as Wallace & Gromit and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,
The Were-Rabbit or The Great Vegetable Plot (Working Titles)

Cast * Interesting Facts

Directed by: Nick Park and Steve Box

Production Start Date: September or October 2003
Release Date: September 30, 2005 (pushed back from Thanksgiving 2004, then announced for Spring 2005 or 2006)

CAST

Wallace... Peter Sallis
Helena Bonham Carter
Ralph Fiennes

INTERESTING FACTS

The characters of Wallace and Gromit, created by Nick Park, have appeared in three animated short films: A Grand Day Out (1992), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995). The latter two films won Academy Awards for best animated short films in their given years.

“We often wondered whether we could make a whole feature film work”, admitted Nick Park in a June 2000 interview, while promoting Chicken Run. “Because the shorts have worked doesn’t mean a feature will. That has been our biggest challenge is making a whole 80 minutes be enthralling and captivating.”

DreamWorks negotiated with Aardman to bring the Oscar winning claymation stars back to the screen in a feature length movie -the second of a four-picture deal with the studio. Provided the details can be worked out, the Wallace and Gromit feature will be the next project for Aardman after The Tortoise and the Hare with a scheduled release date of 2004.

Nick Park and Peter Lord have since confirmed that a project featuring the clay stars of three very successful animated shorts is in the works. Before that, though, they working on an updated version of The Tortoise and the Hare, primarily as executive producers.

Jeffrey Katzenberg said in a February 2001 interview that after Aardman wraps production on The Tortoise and the Hare, they'll finally begin this full-length movie that fans have been demanding. He also said that the producers already have some great, funny plans for the duo's adventure.

Creator Nick Park's company Aardman has signed a £25 million deal with US studio Dreamworks. A spokesman for Aardman told Ananova in March 2001 that the Britsh creations would definitely not be 'going Hollywood'. "Peter Sallis will still be doing Wallace's voice," he says. "The film won't be released for about three years."

Since Tortoise vs. Hare was moved from a 2003 to a 2004 release slot due to cut backs and script problems, rumours flew in July 2001 that Aardman might be switching gears to Wallace & Grommit Movie. Nothing was confirmed officially yet.

Aardman Animation announced in January 2002 that they were working on the new film called The Great Vegetable Plot, which will be released in 2004.

Aardman Animations' Steve Box revealed in July 2002 that "Nick and I are working on a Wallace and Gromit feature film, and at the moment we're writing, along with Bob Baker [who co-wrote The Wrong Trousers and Close Shave with Nick]. So I'm a new addition to the writing team this time, but it's going really well. I had to think very hard about [co-directing a feature film]. That's not to say for a moment that it wasn't so flattering and generous of Nick, and such a great opportunity, because what it means is that I won't animate, and Nick won't animate, which has already happened to him, and that's very difficult, very hard to think about. Making a feature film is a massive process, and it's not something to be gone into lightly. But the characters are great and strong, and it's a great idea, better than any of the other films. I think the main challenge is working with such a vast number of people. I just think making model animated films seems to fit very well with a small crew, complete control freaks, making a world that you're totally in control of. When you end up with thirty people animating for you, and countless model makers, and so many people to organise, it's very difficult to maintain that vision. Of course not impossible, but an entirely different type of work. That's going to be really difficult, I know it's been difficult for Nick. We've been working on the Wallace and Gromit film for coming up to a year now. Depending on what happens with Tortoise and Hare, you're not going to see it for years. I would say you're looking at 2005."

Nick Park revealed in an October 2002 interview that he had been writing the feature "with my colleagues, Bob Baker and Steve Box. We've been working for two years on a script, DreamWorks are behind it, and we go into production early next year. [The Great Vegetable Plot] was the working title. I can tell you that in the way we often borrow movie references (Ealing comedies, Hitchcock, etc.), this one borrows most from B-movie horror and British horror. But it's also about vegetables, so we often describe it as a vegetarian horror movie. The rest you'll have to imagine."

Aardman aims to start shooting a new spoof-horror Wallace And Gromit movie with backing from DreamWorks SKG by September 2003. While Nick Park's movie falls into Aardman's five picture deal with DreamWorks, it has a special arrangement. DreamWorks equity finances other Aardman pictures, but Wallace And Gromit is effectively a negative pick-up cash-flowed by a bank--the UK's leading animation house, admits to short-term cash-flow problems after investing more than $1.6 million in production and facilities over the last 12 months. Aardman retains its ownership of the well-established characters, an eccentric inventor and his long-suffering hound, and will largely control merchandising. "We will effectively recoup from first dollar gross rather than net profits," says Aardman co-founder David Sproxton. "The agreement is much more in our favour." To put things in perspective, a $50M feature can easily double Aardman's annual turnover of roughly $16M-$24M.

Entertainment Weekly referred to this project as Wallace & Gromit in The Were-Rabbit in a July 2003 article, describing it as "a horror spoof spun by Academy Award-winning writer-director Nick Park."

This will be the first feature under the four-picture deal it signed with DreamWorks way back in 1999. Chicken Run co-director Nick Park will begin production on his long-awaited clay-animation Wallace and Gromit movie in September 2003, according to Variety. The film, which Park will direct with Steve Box, will reveal the latest misadventures of the cheese-loving inventor from northern England and his quizzical dog, who have already starred in several lauded shorts. The film is slated for a summer 2005 release, making it no slower to reach the big screen than Chicken Run which took 4½ years from start to finish. DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg originally estimated Aardman would need 12 years to develop and produce its four movies, so the partnership is not really behind schedule. They got off to a false start with the aborted production of The Tortoise and the Hare, which shot for a few months in 2001 before script problems pushed it back into development, where it remains.

DreamWorks announced in August 2003 that they were aiming for wide release on September 30th, 2005. This is two days shy of the same relative date that DreamWorks scheduled Sharkslayer for in 2004, a few days before this announcement. 2005 will be the first year in which DreamWorks releases three animated films wide (the other two will be Madagascar and Over the Hedge), which from now then on will be their annual goal.