Wallace and Gromit are finally back.
The daft inventor and his smarter, silent dog are set to return in a new feature film from Aardman Animation and Netflix, who partnered on last year’s “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.” This new feature, titled “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” hails from Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham and is set to be released “this winter.”
There isn’t much known about the new film, which is the first Wallace and Gromit feature since 2005’s Oscar-winning “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Park created the characters, who have become beloved cultural icons, in 1989 with “A Grand Day Out.” The 23-minute short film aired on Christmas Eve 1990 on Channel 4 in England. It was eventually nominated for an Academy Award in 1991, losing to another Park-directed short, “Creature Comforts.”
That was followed by the brilliant, Oscar-winning “The Wrong Trousers” in 1993 and “A Close Shave” in 1995. Additionally, the characters have inspired several television series, a theme park attraction called Wallace and Gromit’s Thrill-o-matic and a spin-off in “Shaun the Sheep,” whose popularity almost equals Wallace and Gromit’s.
What’s fun about “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” is that it resurrects the most unforgettable supporting character in the series — Feathers McGraw, the villainous penguin from “The Wrong Trousers.” He’s been released from jail and he’s looking for revenge. Early footage previewed at the Next on Netflix Animation event suggested what an Aardman-ized version of “Cape Fear” would look like, as Feathers is finally released from prison.
This marks the first “Wallace and Gromit” film since the passing of Peter Sallis, who voiced Wallace throughout the years. He died in 2017 at the age of 96.
The new film was written by Mark Burton from a story by Park and Burton, and produced by Claire Jennings.
