Wallace And Gromit Are Back

[EDIT: Rich had it wrong. As I previously reported (see the on-again-off-again bit below) the new Wallace and Gromit story is a 30 minute TV piece, made for the BBC. Trouble at Mill will begin animation in January for broadcast late next year - read: Christmas. There's a video announcement of the film on play doh duo's official site]

Rich Johnston got the scoop - Sony and Aardman are on the verge of revealing Nick Park's next film, and it's a Wallace and Gromit feature.

I guess Rich knows somebody in Bristol. Oh... hang on... I know who. I'm pretty sure.

The Wallace and Gromitness of the next Park flick had been on-off-on-again-off-again for a while. I'm glad an official announcement is forthcoming.

Little J

Aardman are producing a 52 part cartoon series called Little J in which an animated version of Jamie Oliver as a ten year old meets some anthropomorphic foodstuffs and learns about cooking. Looks like he's got a standard issue Aardman mouth and a chopper bike rather than a magic torch and a fringeful dog but the comparisons are inevitable.

You know, this could be like that Dudley Moore talking piano rubbish... or it could be rather good indeed. Shaun the Sheep was brilliant, Creature Comforts is regularly great and, judging from the clip I saw online, The Presentators are very funny too - so, basically, Aardman have a very good TV series track record and at 11 minutes per epsiode, that's 571 minutes in total and potentially a very good DVD bargain somewhere down the line.

Movie Minesweeper - The Sign Of A Better Biscuit Edition

Robert Zemeckis, Christopher Lloyd, Michael J Fox, The Lovely Bones, Tom Cruise, Kurt Wimmer, Futurama, Reboot, Steve Guttenberg, Steve Miner, Jessica Simpson, Jackie Chan, Johnny 5, Volker Schlondorff, Beowulf, Aardman, Dave McKean, Bond, 1-18-08, Dark Knight, Prince Caspian, Sean Bean, Family Guy, Heroes, Halo, Henson.

- Jim Hill would have us believe that Robert Zemeckis is planning to reunite Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox. Nope - not in any time travelling capers, but amongst the cast of A Christmas Carol - as Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim. He also seems to have plans to include Tom Hanks as Bob Cratchit. The best thing in the report, however, is the piece of pre-production art. You really should go see it.

- Stanley Tucci is in negotiations to star as child murderer George Harvey in Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. Okay... not the approach to the role I had in mind, but I do trust Jackson and Tucci is rather brilliant.

- Tom Cruise is to play Edwin A. Salt in the Kurt Wimmer-scripted film. Oh dear. Terry George is in talks to direct. Wimmer's not much cop, and while I haven't read this particular script I don't expect much from it at all.

- Scott Weinberg has dug up the titles of the Futurama films.

- Embarrassingly naff TV show Reboot is being remade as a series of direct-to-DVD films. Tron is ropy, but good when it is good and great when featuring a light cycle chase (and happy at home on my shelf), but Reboot was just ropy.

- Who would be hilariously misguided enough to cast Steve Guttenberg in a comedy these days? Steve Miner, that's who. Guttenberg joins Cheri Oteri, Vivica A. Fox and Jessica Simpson in Major Movie Star. Apparently, the script has recently been revised by Oteri also. Lord help me. (Incidentally, Guttenberg has worked with both Sean McNamara and Miner now - he can retire 'happy').

- Talking of Guttenberg, Johnny 5 has turned up on eBay. The real Johnny 5.

- Jackie Chan is to produce and star in The Shinjuku Incident, a drama about Chinese immigrants to Japan during the 90s.

- Volker Schlodnorff has left the director's chair for Saint Joan after failing to agree with the producers' plans to create two cuts: a feature film and a TV mini-series. Place your bets: will they net Oliver Hirschbiegel as a replacement? He conceded to two versions of Downfall, after all - or is he too Hollywood now?

- Aardman's designs for Webbliworld can now be seen on the official site for the Puffin Books/World Wildlife Fund project.

- The world premiere of some Beowulf footage is coming, and soon. What I wouldn't give to be there.

- Dennis Gassner will be handling production design for the next Bond film. Good.

- Even if a Family Guy film really is coming, I would find it hard to care much at all.

- The Dave McKean short films DVD is almost upon us. Unsurprisingly, it has a great cover.

- Somebody has seen the teaser for The Dark Knight, apparently, and described it for us. Hypemongering plant? Probably.

- IGN have some Prince Caspian artwork. Nothing to get too excited about.

- Scenes in the Sarah Connor Chronicles pilot are being reshot due to 'similarities' to the Virginia Tech killings. Of course, this is no reason to reshoot the scenes at all - in fact, quite the contrary. These are just the subjects we need to be dramatising, considering, investigating, discussing.

- Weta's Warthog, from the live action Halo promo, is on display.

- Apparently, George Takei will be displaying super powers on the next series of Heroes.

- There appears to be a 1-18-08 teaser poster on display at Comic-Con. Perhaps. Fuzzy, but looks like the real deal.

- Sean Bean is to star in The Cache.

- Vicki Lawrence has 'won' a role in The Kentucky Fried Horror Show.

- A new line of Henson-designed toys called 'Jim Henson's Critters' is to be unveiled at Comic-Con. And very beautiful they are too.

- The line up for the Venice Days festival sidebar has been published.

- The ties that bind Dreamworks and Paramount may be coming loose. Awww.

- The Sno Cone Stand, Inc. is to star Tony Sirico and Morgan Fairchild. it's a get-rich-quick caper comedy.

- Andy Fickman is directing a remake of Escape to Witch Mountain. Not an entirely redundant remake, of course, but highly likely to be worse than the original.

The Sony And Aardman Slate

Variety have a list of the Aardman projects in development under the new deal with Sony, and they make for pretty exciting reading.

In escalating order of excitement then:

4) Peter Lord's Pirates, from Gideon Dafoe's books. Lord might be an Aardman pioneer, and a great director of animation, but he's not the best with camera, montage, story design. Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil are penning the script, which ensures a certain solidity to the end result, anyway.

3) The Cat Burglars from Steve Box. The screenwriters this time are Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh. Yep - the Life on Mars guys. Might be an odd choice for a claymation film about rascally cats? Who knows. This is described as 'family friendly Tarantino' - whatever that might end up meaning.

2) Peter Baynham's Operation Rudolph. Santa's gift giving endeavours portrayed as a military operation. Baynham is very funny, and with the right director this will be incredible.

1) Nick Park's next. Details are non-existent, with only one piece of negative information: It is NOT a new Wallace and Gromit film. Sure - that's what its not, but what is it?

Park has apparently been developing more Wallace and Gromit and it seems odd that this isn't it. The most likely reason, I think, is that he's planning a short for them, not a feature. BBC involvement had been rumoured, so that might be just what is going on. Another Bank Holiday special?

I'm very disappointed to see no Richard Goleszowski project in the line up. Boo. I'm hoping he's teaming with Baynham on the Christmas film. That might knock Park off the top of the tree.

Movie Minewsweeper - The Let's Try That Again, Shall We? Edition

- Darren Aronofsky is to record a commentary track for The Fountain and release it online. I saw this at Cinematical.

- Frank Miller still believes in a Sin City 2. I wonder if he also believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. On the upside, he's now sold on 3D - after a screening of U2 3D. Does this mean The Spirit might get an extra dimension?

- Today's completely fabricated quote alleges that Tim Burton is set to direct a film about Marilyn Manson's recent divorce. At least we can cross another site off of the legitimate source list - and the first time I've ever heard of the site too. That's efficiency for you.

- Aardman are to launch their own channel on Joost. Fine - but I don't have an invite to use the service. Who's going to ask me in?

- K-Fed has landed a small role in Night Watch. How?

- Scott Sigler's Infested is to be filmed. Know the book? I don't. Any good?

- You can download the trailer to Wilson Yip's Flashpoint right now, if your right-clicker works.

- A Mister Lonely clip has turned up online. If Harmony Korine has any idea what he's doing he certainly hasn't worked out why he shouldn't be doing it.

- Luc Besson is to float EuropaCorp on the paris stock exchange. This was one of the stories I lost in the earlier Blogger meltdown.

- I still haven't stopped laughing about the Silver Surfer coin cock-up.

Aardman Expand

Aardman are about to shell out 10 million quid for, basically, a really big extension. They'll keep using the Banana Warehouse to make the films, moving admin and clerical business into the Gasferry development next door.

Apparently, it will feature a mini-cinema (what? Aardman don't already have a decent screening room? Jeez) and could get as much as 25% of it's energy from wind turbines on the roof.

David Sproxton said "All this news comes through in a rush like waiting for a London red bus. We've been working on the feature deal for about a year, and the planning for the building has gone on for even longer."

A London red bus? Is he trying to imply all Bristol buses come spaced out and on time? I know that's not true.

Gromit, The Little Nipper

To promote their 'Buy Your Kids DVDs And That' campaign, HMV have recruited lovable plasticine scamp Gromit to stare down the muzzle of their gramophone for a while. Poor old Nipper, probably still reeling from the confusion of his master's voice coming out of a dirty great horn, is out in the doghouse.

Thankfully, it's only temporary.

[EDIT: According to Marketing Week, there's a possible animated ad for TV and cinema on the cards too. Good stuff]

Aardman Off To Sony

Variety say "Sony Pictures Entertainment has agreed a three-year, first-look deal with Aardman Features"

Apparently, Aardman have four fature scripts in advanced stages of development, one of which is the next Wallace and Gromit film that I'm sure Sony will be keen to net. I understand that BBC Films had been circling that one, and maybe a co-production deal will still come through.

Aardman's COO, Stephen Moore, has commented on how Sony have less of a desire to control than Dreamworks. Here's hoping it's much less, because a little less would still be much too much.

The plan is now for Aardman to produce a film every 18 months, both in stop-motion and CG. The Sony deal is only for three years, and is simply on a first look basis, so it is still possible - if unlikely - that Aardman could produce films elsewhere, even in that timeframe.

I'm hoping Richard Goleszowski now gets another crack at a feature.

Dreamworks Gets Talent

Variety have announced that Chris Sanders, director of Lilo and Stitch and originator of American Dog, has signed to Dreamworks. His first project is to be Crood Awakening, previously in development with Aardman and co-scripted by John Cleese.

Add to this the fact that Disney 3D's Phil McNally is headed to Dreamworks too and it seems like the Dreamworks Animations' batting average might be about to increase drastically.

Of course, it looked that way when Aardman signed, and while I suppose it was true - no other animation from the studio even comes close to Curse of the Wererabbit - the sad fact is, both Chicken Run and Flushed Away were, frankly, sub-par for Aardman efforts. Dreamworks also dumped Richard Goleszowski's Tortoise and the Hare, one of Aardman's most interesting and ambitious concepts.

If Aardman did good for Dreamworks, yippee for Dreamworks - but they did bad for Aardman, so I was glad to see the partnership fold. I don't want the same to be true of Sanders and McNally. I want to see them do even better work than they have at Disney.

Pegg, Frost, Aardman, Borat, Little Britain And Numberwang: This Year's Comic Relief Line Up

Red Nose Day for 2007 is Friday March 16th. Want to know what's planned for the evening?

A 'special' Mr Bean; and Ant and Dec, but no autopsied aliens; a 'special' installment of Harry Hill's TV Burp; a 'special' Creature Comforts from Aardman; Catherine Tate as Lauren, with a new teacher; Russell Brand and Dennis Waterman star in 'special' Little Britain Live sketches; Dawn French returns for one last 'special' time as The Vicar of Dibley; a 'special' episode of - oh, lord help us all, this is crazy - Numberwang with Carol Vorderman and Jonny Ball as Mitchell and Webb's victims; a 'top secret' treat from Peter Kay (who is, definitively, 'special'); a 'special' appearance from Ricky Gervais as 'never seen before' (maybe they mean he'll say or do something actually funny); Graham Norton and Davina McCall being 'naughty'; a 'special' appearance from Borat; Armando Ianucci grilling celeb guests about the worst moments of Comic Relief in history; more from Little Britain Live with Kate Thornton and Dawn French; Chris Moyles winding up his Rally-oke tour; Mitchell and Webb performing a 'special' version of Lady in Red; more from Aardman, in league with Marc Wootton; Tim Westwood in a 'special' Pimp My Ride; Little Britain Live (again) with Jeremy Edwards, Peter Kay (again) and David Baddiel; and the final wind-down with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

That's BBC1, from 7pm, on Friday March 16th. Superb.

Purple And Brown

Aardman's Purple and Brown bumpers now have a You Tube channel all of their very own and it is very addictive.

Aardman Liberated

Moriarty at Aint it Cool considers this to be bad news. I simply can't agree.

As film ick celebrated as far back as November 12th last year, Aardman and Dreamworks have parted ways. This can only be good news - certainly if you know anything about the ludicrous notes, budget cuts and restrictions placed on Were Rabbit, Flushed Away and the cruelly exterminated Tortoise and the Hare.

Congratulations to all at Aardman and best luck for your hopefully unhassled future filmmaking adventures.