After more than a decade, “Wallace and Gromit” will make their big return in 2024 with a new feature film that will be released on the BBC in the United Kingdom and on Netflix in the rest of the world.
The stop-motion animation studio Aardman announced the new project on Wednesday, with series creator Nick Park returning as director with Merlin Crossingham. While the film’s title has not been released, the plot will see the cheese-loving inventor and his much smarter dog take on the world of smart technology when Wallace creates a “Smart Gnome” to take care of chores for him…only for the gnome to develop a mind of its own. With Wallace in danger from his own creation, it’s up to Gromit to save the day.
The new “Wallace and Gromit” film will be the first project with the duo since the passing of Wallace’s original voice actor, Peter Sallis, in 2017. Aardman has not revealed who will replace Sallis in the film, though voice actor Ben Whitehead played the role in the 2009 video game “Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures” as well as for new footage for a “Wallace and Gromit”-themed performance at the BBC Proms in 2013.
The “Wallace & Gromit” series began in 1989 with the short film “A Grand Day Out,” which earned an Oscar nomination. The next two short films, “The Wrong Trousers” in 1993 and “A Close Shave” in 1995, each won the animated short Oscar, and in 2005 the duo made their feature film debut with “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” which joined “Spirited Away” as only the second non-American film to win Best Animated Feature. The series also got another Oscar nomination with a fourth short film, “A Matter of Loaf and Death,” in 2008.
Since the release of “Loaf and Death,” Aardman has turned its efforts to other productions, earning three more Oscar nominations for “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!” in 2013 and two “Shaun the Sheep” movies in 2016 and 2021. “Shaun the Sheep” is a spinoff series from “Wallace and Gromit” based on a character from “A Close Shave,” spawning a hit children’s series that debuted on the BBC in 2007.
This will be the third Aardman film released by Netflix, as the streamer released “Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon” in 2020 and is slated to release a sequel to the hit 2000 film “Chicken Run” that is currently in production.