Wallace & Gromit and The Curse of the Wererabbit

[©brad]

sweet jesus.

[matt35mm]

Put a big bowtie on that beast, charge people $20 to see it, and it's a guaranteed moneymaker.

[Pubrick]

I thought for sure that was a fake photograph, but I checked out snopes.com, and apparently it's real.  Here's another photo:

that's not the same rabbit as the one in the article though, that's a separate cutey patootey.

[matt35mm]

WALLACE AND GROMIT ON THE COMEBACK TRAIL

LONDON (Reuters)

Wallace and Gromit, the quirky plasticine stars of British cinema, are on the comeback trail. The filmmaking partnership of Aardman Animations Ltd and Hollywood's DreamWorks Animation SKG may have ended on Tuesday but Nick Park, creator of the animated pals, is busy at the drawing board creating a Wallace and Gromit sequel.

"Wallace and Gromit are alive and kicking," Aardman spokesman Arthur Sheriff said on Wednesday. "There is a project on the table right now.

"It could be television, it could be a feature film. That depends on how the storyline develops. It will go into production as soon as he has finished writing it."

DreamWorks and Aardman ended their seven-year partnership on Tuesday, saying their "ambitions have moved apart."

One problem was that the two failed to follow up on the success of their 2000 joint production "Chicken Run."

"Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were Rabbit" was released in 2005 to critical acclaim and was awarded the Oscar for best animated feature. But box office receipts were weaker than expected.

In their first full-length film, the dim-witted Wallace and his faithful hound took on a mutant rabbit bent on destroying the town's annual Giant Vegetable Contest hosted by Wallace's secret love, Lady Tottington.

Peter Sallis reprised his role voicing Wallace, Ralph Fiennes played the evil Victor Quartermaine and Helena Bonham Carter provided the voice of Lady Tottington.

Park previously won three Oscars in the short film category with works featuring the famous duo -- "Creature Comfort" in 1990, "The Wrong Trousers" in 1993 and "A Close Shave" in 1995. He was also nominated in 1990 for "A Grand Day Out."

Sheriff said the split with DreamWorks was amicable but added: "What we have achieved is our freedom to make the film we want to make."

For Park, computer-generated images never matched the attraction of plasticine -- however time-consuming the film-making process might be.

"Nick loves creating stories for Wallace and Gromit and he feels they only really work in plasticine," Sheriff said.

"He is a creative filmmaker, he doesn't sit around the table discussing money deals with the executives."

Park was dealt a bitter blow in 2005 when a storage warehouse fire destroyed props and sets from the Oscar-winning movies.

[Ravi]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6518257.stm

Gromit animators sign Sony deal

Wallace and Gromit creator Aardman Animations has agreed a three-year deal with Sony Pictures.

The Bristol-based company had been looking for a new Hollywood partner after its association with US studio Dreamworks came to an end in January.

"We couldn't be more excited about working with the entire Aardman team," said Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal.

Aardman co-founder David Sproxton said: "We are delighted to find a partner in Sony that shares our vision."

Oscar success

"We are all very excited by the potential and have a number of projects we are keen to bring to fruition with this new relationship," Sproxton added.

Last year's Open Season, featuring Billy Connolly as the leader of a group of squirrels, was the first release from Sony Pictures' animation arm.

Back in January it was reported the five-film deal between Aardman and Dreamworks had ended after two movies underperformed.

Losses were reported for their last two films, Flushed Away and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

However, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit went on to win the Oscar for best animated feature - one of four Academy Awards which creator Nick Park has won since 1991.

[MacGuffin]

Aardman reveals new slate
Smith to oversee lineup
Source: Variety

Two months after announcing a three-year first-look deal with Sony Pictures, Aardman Features has unveiled a diverse slate of projects.

Lineup will be supervised by creative director Sarah Smith, who has been upped from head of development to the new role.

After stints as executive producer at the BBC and a string of comedy hits as a freelancer, Smith joined Aardman last year. Her impact on the claymation specialist has been immediate -- she has signed up a fleet of highly rated scribes for the Bristol-based animation powerhouse.

Smith has signed writers Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah ("Life on Mars") to work with director Steve Box on comedy heist "The Cat Burglars." The film about milk thieving stray cats will be in Aardman's trademark stop-frame claymation and combine the comedy action of Nick Park and Box's "Wallace and Gromit" feature with the cool styling of "Ocean's Eleven," Aardman claims. Box promises auds something altogether fresh -- "family friendly Tarantino."

Aardman co-founder Peter Lord returns to the director's chair for the first time since "Chicken Run" in 2000 with a comedy adventure based on the "Pirates" series of books penned by Gideon Defoe. Lord, Defoe and writers Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil, whose credits include the sitcom "Hyperdrive" and animation series "Slacker Cats," are working on the screenplay.

Also signed up to Aardman by Smith is Peter Baynham, one of the writers on "Borat," who is developing "Operation Rudolph," an actioner set on Christmas night. The Christmas movie shows the North Pole operation as an exhilarating ultra high-tech military procedure on a massive scale, revealing how Santa and his huge army of combat elves get round the whole world in one night.

Additionally, Nick Park is developing a new project. Details are not yet released but it is not another "Wallace and Gromit," according to an Aardman spokesperson.

"I'm passionate about matching the brilliance of Aardman's filmmakers with the very best talent in British comedy screenwriting," commented Smith. "This is an interesting time in the animation industry -- while there is clearly still a big appetite among cinemagoers for great animated films, there is a feeling of sameness about much of the product coming out of the industry at present, in terms of their stories. I think there's a great opportunity to excite audiences by raising the stakes in terms of the quality, intelligence and variety of the stories our animated films tell and the genres they inhabit."

[MacGuffin]

Park Announces New Wallace & Gromit Film!
Source: Aardman

Today, fans throughout the world can see Nick Park talking about "Wallace & Gromit's" forthcoming new film. Within an interview style short film, available only on the internet, Nick reveals that the plasticine duo's new adventure will be made for TV.

"Trouble At' Mill" will join multi-award winning "The Wrong Trousers" and "A Close Shave" as a TV half hour.

"Trouble At' Mill," to be shown on BBC1, is in pre-production now. Shooting starts in January and it will be finished for fall/Christmas '08. All production will take place at the Aardman studios in Bristol.

After the incredible success of "Curse of The Were-Rabbit," Nick is delighted to return to the 30 minute format: "I love making films for the cinema but the production of 'Chicken Run' and 'Curse of the Were-Rabbit' were virtually back to back and each film took 5 years to complete. 'Trouble At' Mill' will be so much quicker to make and I can't wait to get back into production." The new film will reunite Nick with writer Bob Baker who co-wrote both "The Wrong Trousers" and "A Close Shave."

In the film, Wallace and Gromit have a brand new business. The conversion of 62 West Wallaby Street is complete and impressive, the whole house is now a granary with ovens and robotic kneading arms. Huge mixing bowls are all over the place and everything is covered with a layer of flour. On the roof is a 'Wallace patent-pending' old-fashioned windmill. The transformation is perfect.

Although business is booming, Gromit is concerned by the news that 12 local bakers have 'disappeared' this year – but Wallace isn't worried. He's too distracted and 'dough-eyed' in love with local beauty and bread enthusiast, Piella Bakewell, to be of much help.

While they enjoy being the 'Toast of the Town', Gromit, with his master's life in jeopardy, must be the sleuth and solve the escalating murder mystery - in what quickly becomes a 'Matter of Loaf and Death'.