nick park Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you aren't familiar with the characters Wallace and Gromit, this is the perfect month to get acquainted. The claymation duo's Oscar-winning feature debut, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, is one of the best Halloween-time movies for the whole family. After watching that -- and laughing your tail off -- you need to check out animator Nick Park's other W&G films. There's three shorts, titled A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award (the latter two won -- the first actually only lost out to another brilliant short by Park, Creature Comforts). Then, you'll be all caught up and all set to wait until the next loony adventure, which has just been announced to be coming in Christmas 2008. According to BBC News, the new film will be another short, will be co-written by Bob Baker and will be titled Trouble At' Mill.

In Trouble, Wallace and his faithful, silent sidekick (pet isn't quite right for Gromit) have yet another inventive business. This time, it's a bakery, fully equipped with mechanical arms that knead the dough. And like in past films, there's a mystery to be solved, this one involving twelve bakers who have disappeared (will Wallace end up completing the baker's dozen?). Also, Wallace has another new love interest, who can be seen in sketches and a model care of the BBC here. Back in February, when we heard about another W&G project in the works, I had hoped it would be another feature. Then, two months later, when Aardman Animation struck a new distribution deal with Sony, I kept on hoping. Finally, in June, Aardman/Sony announced four new projects, one of which was said to be from Park!

But with this new announcement Park told the BBC that while he'd like to make another feature-length film, they take so long and Hollywood involves so much pressure. He also said that he's doing this one strictly for himself and the fans. Hey, I'm glad to have anything featuring the pair, just as long as I do get to see it. Trouble At' Mill, which begins filming in January, is set to premiere exclusively on BBC One next Christmas, but hopefully it will get a quick television or DVD release in the States soon after.

The story of Noah and the flood will be told a million more times in some medium or other. But following the disappointment of Evan Almighty, it seems a little soon for a new movie version. Sure, Evan wasn't exactly a strict adaptation of the Bible tale, but it was based enough on it to make audiences not so hungry for another Ark adventure. Yet, according to Variety, Unified Pictures (Don't Move) has announced plans to do a computer-animated Noah's Ark, which will be scripted by Philip LaZebnik, who has worked on Dreamworks' Biblical kids film The Prince of Egypt and Disney's Pocahontas and Mulan. Religious films, whether live-action or animated, can be hit or miss, but like Evan Almighty, this new project is not a straightforward telling of Noah and the flood; instead it will focus on the story from the point of view of the animals.

Personally, I love the idea. But I'd love it much better if it was coming from Nick Park and Aardman Animation. It would be like Creature Comforts ... on a boat. The connection between Unified and Park exists: the indie studio has worked many times with Northern Arts Entertainment, which distributed a lot of Aardman shorts, including Park's Wallace and Gromit films. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that dream will happen. Unified seems pretty set on making a CG pic that resembles those made by the big studios. The best way of doing that, of course, is to get some familiar comedic voices involved. If this pic is more successful than Evan Almighty, perhaps we'll then get to see a greenlight on Darren Aronofsky's own Noah's Ark movie, which he's been interested in doing since he was 13.

I was so, so, so happy when Aardman Animation (Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit) got a new distribution deal with Sony two months ago. And now I'm so, so, so happy that the two studios have announced four new projects, all of which sound amazing. It isn't clear what film will arrive in theaters first, nor in what order these films will be released at all, but considering Aardman's deal with Sony is only for three years, I'm guessing at least one of these will be in theaters by the end of 2008.

• First of note is the directorial return of Aardman co-founder Peter Lord (Chicken Run), who will be make an animated feature based on Gideon Defoe's The Pirates! series of books (the first, titled The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists, features Charles Darwin as a main character). The script is being written by Lord and Defoe with British television vets Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil (they also wrote the upcoming feature Gnomeo and Juliet).
• Oscar-winner Steve Box, who co-directed Curse of the Were-Rabbit, will direct The Cat Burglars, a supposed mix of Wallace and Gromit and Ocean's Eleven that equals "family-friendly Tarantino." Writing this one, along with Box, are partners Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh (British TV's Life on Mars).
  
• Four-time Oscar-winner Nick Park, who created the Wallace and Gromit characters, is working on a new feature, but the studios haven't specified exactly what it is. A few months back, when Aardman was still in flux, Park was said to be working on a new W&G project, but it probably wasn't a feature film. However, now that Sony has made feature films more possible for the animation studio, we can be hopeful that another full-length outing from our favorite cheese-lovers is in the works.
• Finally Aardman has tapped a special new screenwriter to work on an animated action film for the holiday season. Peter Baynham, who was nominated (with four other guys) for an Oscar for writing Borat, is scripting Operation Rudolph, which portrays Santa and the North Pole as being like a high-tech military force (a peaceful, present-delivering force).
  

It should be a green-tie affair at the opening night gala of this year's Tribeca Film Festival. The event, happening April 25, will be hosted by Al Gore and is set to feature some entertainment that will focus on the global warming issue. This entertainment is part of a partnership with the SOS (Save Our Selves) Campaign, which raises climate crisis awareness and will include live performances from some of the artists participating in SOS' Live Earth concert series happening on July 7. The acts set for the gala weren't revealed, but some of those involved with the Live Earth shows include Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Mayer, John Legend, Black Eyed Peas, Korn and Melissa Etheridge, who recently won an Oscar for the song she wrote for the Gore-featured documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Also, the night will include the premiere of seven short films, each of which deals with the problems and the solutions of the crisis and each of which is shorter than ten minutes. The directors and titles of these shorts were not yet revealed either, because the seven showcased films have not been chosen yet. They will be selected by the festival's planners from the 60 shorts that were commissioned by SOS. Some of the filmmakers who participated include Jonathan Glazer, Kevin Macdonald, Abel Ferrara, Amy Berg, Ari Sandel, the doc duo Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady and someone from Aardman Animation (Peter Lord? Nick Park?). It isn't completely made clear, but it seems that all 60 of the commissioned films will be shown during the Live Earth event. So, if you can't make it to New York City for the world premiere of the seven shorts, you can see at least those if not all of them at one of the concerts (so far the only locations announced are Shanghai, Sydney, London and Johannesburg, while the cities in the U.S., Brazil, Japan and Antarctica are TBA). I probably won't be able to attend the gala or one of the concerts, so hopefully there will be another place for me to see the films. After all, this is the best news for shorts fans since Cannes' announced its own opening night compilation.

Because there is still good in this world, it has taken only about three months for Aardman Animation to find a new partnership in Hollywood. The animation studio, which DreamWorks mistakenly flushed away back in January, has a new deal with Sony, and it sounds like it will be a much better team-up for the Aardman gang than their last. Reportedly, Aardman will not face the same sort of assimilation it faced at DreamWorks, where its most recent picture, Flushed Away, suffered from too much Hollywoodization. Instead, it is expected to produce a new title every 18 months, each with different budgets and some being made with CGI (as opposed to the studio's signature claymation style), all with less restriction from Sony and all based out of Aardman's home base in Bristol rather than out of Hollywood. The deal is presently set at a three year agreement, but Sony seems hopeful about the partnership lasting a long time.

Sony should benefit just as much from the deal, which will increase its output of animated films. The studio recently got into the competitive animation market full force, and so far with Monster House and Open Season it has only been performing so-so (its next release is Surfs Up, coming out June 8). Aardman will be bringing familiar characters to the table, though, with confirmed new Wallace & Gromit features. The Aardman name is also a fairly known brand around the world, which should prove profitable for overseas distribution (which Sony seems to appreciate even more than others). The partnership already has four projects in the works -- they obvioulsy aren't wasting any time -- but we are still probably a few years away from seeing the first collaboration (I'm hoping one is the animated mockumentary Tortoise vs. Hare). Although I wish Sony could now grab Crood Awakening, which had originated as an Aardman project, away from DreamWorks, I am otherwise really happy about this partnership. I may even be happier than Wallace at a cheese buffet.

If there's any Wallace & Gromit fans out there saddened by the breakup of Dreamworks and Aardman, cheer up. I told you there was plenty more in store for the animation studio's most popular characters, and I wasn't just being hopeful. According to a spokesman from Aardman, Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park is working on a new project for the claymation duo. It isn't certain, though, whether the project will be for the big screen or for television. But whatever the medium, it is scheduled to begin shooting as soon as Park is finished writing the script.

Considering the fact that Aardman is without a major film distributor for the time being, it might make sense that the new Wallace & Gromit is made for TV. Aardman already has one series (Creature Comforts) put out to CBS and if it goes well (air it already!), there could potentially be interest in more from the animation studio. Most of us W&G fans would definitely love to see another feature, like Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but we can't be choosy when it comes to these guys. We waited years between half-hour shorts, and we will take anything we're given -- except for a CGI or live-action version, of course.

Everyone knew it was coming. Following the disappointing box office of Flushed Away, there was speculation that it would happen. And now it is certain: Dreamworks has cut Aardman Animation loose. Sadly, the studio is now also citing the weak performance of the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as an added reason for the end of the partnership. Aside from winning prestigious awards, that film made more than $192 million worldwide (actually, only $20 million more than Flushed Away). I guess when you're used to Shrek 2-size figures ($920 million), though, a lot of numbers look small.

I'm not too worried about Aardman. They were doing amazing work before the Dreamworks deal, and they'll do amazing work after. The animation studio still has a thing going with CBS, which is sitting on seven episodes of a Creature Comforts series, which I think is based on Nick Park's Oscar-winning short. However, there may not be any features from Aardman for awhile. I was very upset to learn that Crood Awakening, which was co-written by John Cleese and was to be the next Aardman feature, is being left behind at Dreamworks, where it will presumably be shelved for good. I'm sure that Dreamworks is hoping the Shrek movies will never lose their steam, but I just can't believe that there's much more to do with those characters.

Dreamworks isn't too happy with the box office performance of Flushed Away, the new computer-animated film released by the studio as part of its deal with Aardman Animation. The picture has only made about $41 million in the U.S. since it opened two weeks ago, and it isn't likely to come anywhere close to recouping its cost of $149 million. Variety is reporting that the studio will take a "an unspecified write-down" on the film. I'm not good with financial jargon, and I don't understand what this exactly means, but it is something kind of like a tax write-off, only partial. If anyone can explain it better in layman's terms, by all means, leave me a comment.

The part of this news that is easier to comprehend, and a little more unfortunate, is the possibility that Dreamworks will now drop its deal with Aardman. Flushed Away is the third Aardman picture co-produced by Dreamworks. The first two were Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, both of which performed much better. The next Aardman feature, Crood Awakening, which is being co-written by John Cleese, will likely have to be distributed by someone else. This is a shame, because although I haven't yet seen Flushed Away, I imagine it is better than Shrek the Third, which will make Dreamworks a whole ton of money when it's released next Spring.

The geeks among us who watched the Oscars this year didn't have much to talk about. Our heavy hitters, despite being kings at the box office (Narnia, Star Wars, and Potter, for example), didn't get much love from the Academy, taking in only the occasional peripheral nomination for costuming and the like. However, we did get a small moment of enjoyment when Wallace and Gromit claimed the best animated feature award* and its beloved creators Nick Park and Steve Box stepped forward to collect their prizes wearing outlandishly large bow ties, complete with miniature versions for the Oscars. Park and Box explained the attire by simply saying that initially they couldn't decide if the gimmick was passable, but by the time the evening rolled around they were so nervous that they just decided "what the heck." I, for one, am glad they did, because it provided one of my few moments of true enjoyment in an Oscar ceremony from which I was otherwise rather detached.

Disclaimer: Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to devalue the movies that did win, just noting that the films I enjoyed most from this year didn't make the Oscar cut. I guess the filmmakers will just have to comfort themselves with the piles of money they can roll in while the rest of Hollywood laments the declining box office numbers.

*The geeks of the world would have been just as satisfied, certainly, if anime hit Howl's Moving Castle had claimed the award.

Wallace and Gromit  stories are, in this not-so-humble writer's opinion, among the most enjoyable non-live action experiences to be found in entertainment today. Something about their simple, innocent appeal really works for me-for alot of us, I believe. If you're reading this and nodding your head in unspoken agreement, then you should be as delighted as I was to learn that the unfortunate studio fire which burned through hundreds W&G props and sets last October will not mark the end of plans for more films. While promoting a new board game at the London Toy Fair, Creator Nick Park recently said that he has "lots more Wallace and Gromit ideas in the back of my head." He said that he's not sure where the ideas will lead yet- some of them may turn into short features, others could possibly be full length movies. Whatever the case, Wallace and Gromit will be returning soon.