Interview: ‘Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ Directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham on Bringing Back Two of Animation’s Most Beloved Characters [VIDEO]
More than 30 years ago, Nick Park introduced the world to an affable and eccentric inventor named Wallace and his loyal, brilliant canine companion Gromit in the 1989 Academy Award-nominated short film, A Grand Day Out. The charming, idyllic setting, fun and unique character design, and stop-motion animation made Wallace & Gromit instant pop stars in the UK and soon turned that success into international acclaim as well.
Wallace & Gromit would return to the Oscars to collect awards for The Wrong Trousers in 1993 and A Close Shave in 1995. Wallace & Gromit’s first feature, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, won the Oscar for Animated Feature Film in 2005.
In addition to taking home the first Academy Award for the loveable pair, The Wrong Trousers introduced the dastardly villain Feathers McGraw, a penguin with a plot to steal a priceless diamond from the local museum. And now, after 20 years in prison, Feathers McGraw is back in the all new feature Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, taking revenge on the ones that put him away.
Park, who joined Aardman Animations in 1985, has directed many stop-motion animated films. In addition to the Wallace & Gromit collection, he also helmed the 2000 hit Chicken Run, which is still the highest grossing stop-motion animated film of all time. Most recently, he directed the 2018 movie Early Man and has served as executive producer on the Shaun the Sheep series and movies.
Merlin Crossingham started as an animator with early work on Chicken Run, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and the Nick Park-created TV series Creature Comforts. It was with Creature Comforts that he transitioned to directing, working as creative director on a number of Aardman projects.
Together, Park and Crossingham bring Wallace, Gromit, Feathers McGraw, and a delightful cast of both familiar and new characters to a film that AwardsWatch editor Sophia Ciminello wrote, “captures the magic of the earlier entries while introducing a new generation to the animation style and characters of the past.”
I recently had the privilege of talking with Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham about how much has changed – and hasn’t – since 1989, how they knew it was time for another feature-length adventure, and how they were able to predict the future of artificial intelligence to create a film that is both timeless and timely.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will be available to stream on Netflix beginning January 3.
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