Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit | |
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Directed by | |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | Wallace and Gromit by Nick Park |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | David Alex Riddett Tristan Oliver |
Edited by | David McCormick Gregory Perler |
Music by | Julian Nott |
Production companies | |
Distributed by |
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Release dates | |
Running time | 85 minutes [3] |
Countries | |
Language | English |
Budget | $30 million |
Box office | $192.7 million [6] |
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a 2005 animated comedy film directed by Nick Park and Steve Box. It was produced by DreamWorks Animation in collaboration with Aardman Animations. It was the second feature-length film by Aardman, after Chicken Run (2000). The film debuted in Sydney, Australia on 4 September 2005, before being released in theaters in the United States on 7 October 2005 and in the United Kingdom on 14 October 2005.
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a parody of classic monster movies and Hammer Horror films and also serves as part of the Wallace & Gromit series, created by Park. The film centres on good-natured yet eccentric cheese-loving inventor Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) and his intelligent quiet dog, Gromit, in their latest venture as pest control agents. They come to the rescue of their town plagued by rabbits before the annual Giant Vegetable Competition. However, the duo soon find themselves against a giant rabbit consuming the town's crops.
The film features an expanded cast of characters relative to the previous Wallace and Gromit shorts, with a voice cast including Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes. While the film was considered a box-office disappointment in the US by DreamWorks Animation, [7] it was more commercially successful internationally. It also received critical acclaim and won a number of awards, including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, making it the first stop-motion film to win. A new feature film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl , will be released in 2024.
As Tottington Hall's annual giant vegetable competition approaches, cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his beagle Gromit provide a humane pest control business known as "Anti-Pesto", protecting people's vegetables from rabbits. One evening, after capturing rabbits found in the garden of Lady Tottington using his "Bun-Vac 6000", Wallace uses his latest invention, the "Mind Manipulation-O-Matic", to brainwash them into disliking vegetables. As they brainwash the rabbits, Wallace accidentally changes the setting of the Bun-Vac, and his brain is fused with a rabbit, forcing Gromit to destroy the machine. The transfer appears to have worked, as the rabbit shows no interest in vegetables. They name the rabbit Hutch and place him in a cage.
That night, a giant rabbit-like creature devours many people's vegetables, and the duo fails to respond. During a town meeting the next day, the creature is revealed to be the Were-Rabbit. Hunter Victor Quartermaine offers to hunt the creature, but Tottington persuades the townsfolk to give Wallace and Gromit a second chance. After Anti-Pesto unsuccessfully tries to trap the Were-Rabbit using a makeshift female Were-Rabbit, they find that Hutch has mutated; Wallace suspects that Hutch is the beast and has Gromit lock him in a high-security cage. However, Gromit discovers a footprint trail leading into Wallace's bedroom and finds a pile of half-eaten vegetables inside, indicating that Wallace is the real culprit.
After celebrating his success with Tottington, Wallace is cornered in the forest by Victor, who vies for Tottington's affections and fortune. Wallace transforms into the Were-Rabbit under the full moon in front of Gromit and Victor and flees. Now seeing the perfect chance to eliminate his rival, Victor obtains three "24-carrot" gold bullets from the town's vicar, Reverend Clement Hedges, to use against Wallace.
On the day of the vegetable competition, Gromit reveals to Wallace that the experiment has swapped his and Hutch's personalities; the latter now carries his human traits and is the only one who can fix the Mind-O-Matic. Tottington visits and informs Wallace of Victor's plan; as the moon rises, Wallace begins to transform again and hastily forces Tottington to leave. Victor arrives and attempts to shoot Wallace, but Gromit saves Wallace. Although Victor locks Gromit in a cage, he escapes with the help of Hutch and they devise a plan to save Wallace.
At the competition, after using up all his gold bullets, Victor takes an elephant gun and the Golden Carrot trophy to use as ammunition. Wallace carries Tottington atop Tottington Hall and reveals his true identity to her. Gromit subdues Victor's dog, Philip, in a dogfight using aeroplanes taken from a fairground attraction. Gromit then steers his plane into Victor's line of fire as he shoots at Wallace, causing the bullet to hit the plane instead. As the damaged plane falls, Wallace jumps to protect Gromit, breaking his fall as they both land in a cheese tent. Tottington knocks out Victor with her giant prized carrot before Gromit quickly disguises Victor in the female Were-Rabbit suit, causing the townspeople and Philip to chase him away.
Wallace morphs back to his human self and appears dead, but Gromit brings him around with Stinking Bishop. Tottington awards Gromit the Golden Carrot for his valor and converts the grounds of Tottington Hall into a nature reserve for Hutch and the other rabbits.
In March 2000, it was officially announced that Wallace and Gromit were to star in their own feature film. [9] It would have been Aardman's next film after The Tortoise and the Hare, which was subsequently abandoned by the studio in July 2001, owing to script problems. [10] [11]
The directors, Nick Park and Steve Box, have often referred to the film as the world's "first vegetarian horror film". [12] [13] Peter Sallis (the voice of Wallace) is joined in the film by Ralph Fiennes (as Lord Victor Quartermaine), Helena Bonham Carter (as Lady Campanula Tottington), Peter Kay (as PC Mackintosh), Nicholas Smith (as Rev. Clement Hedges), and Liz Smith (as Mrs. Mulch). As established in the preceding short films, Gromit is a silent character, communicating purely via body language.[ citation needed ]
The film was originally going to be called Wallace & Gromit: The Great Vegetable Plot, but the title was changed, as the market research disliked it. [14] The first reported release date for The Great Vegetable Plot was November 2004. [15] Production officially began in September 2003, and the film was then set for release on 30 September 2005. In July 2003, Entertainment Weekly referred to the film as Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.[ citation needed ]
Park said that after separate test screenings with British and American audiences, including children, he adjusted the characters' speech for American audiences. [16] Park was often sent notes from DreamWorks, which stressed him. He recalled one note that Wallace's car should be trendier, which he disagreed with because he felt making things look old-fashioned made it look more ironic. [17]
The vehicle Wallace drives in the film is an Austin A35 van. In collaboration with Aardman in the spring of 2005, a road going replica of the model was created by brothers Mark and David Armé, founders of the International Austin A30/A35 Register, for promotional purposes. In a 500-man-hour customisation, an original 1964 van received a full body restoration, before being dented and distressed to perfectly replicate the model van used in the film. The official colour of the van is Preston Green, named in honour of Nick Park's hometown. The name was chosen by the art director and Mark Armé.[ citation needed ]
The film was the last DreamWorks Animation film distributed by its parent DreamWorks Pictures, as the studio spun off as an independent studio in 2004 until its acquisition by NBCUniversal in 2016. In July 2014, the film's distribution rights were purchased by DreamWorks Animation from Paramount Pictures (owners of the pre-2005 DreamWorks Pictures catalog) [18] and transferred to 20th Century Fox before reverting to Universal Pictures in 2018. However, Aardman Animations still retains complete ownership of the film. [19]
The film had its worldwide premiere on 4 September 2005, in Sydney, Australia. [4] It was theatrically released in the United States on 7 October 2005, and in United Kingdom and Hong Kong the following week. The film was accompanied by the short film The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper , starring the penguins from the Madagascar franchise.
In Region 2, the film was released not only on VHS but also in a two-disc special edition DVD that includes Cracking Contraptions , plus a number of other extras on 20 February 2006. In Region 1, the film was released on DVD in widescreen and full-screen versions and VHS on 7 February 2006. Walmart stores carried a special version with an additional DVD, "Gromit's Tail-Waggin' DVD" which included the test shorts made for this production, making of the Were-Rabbit creature, memorable moments of the film titled "Gromit's Favorite Scenes", a video showing the legacy of the "Wallace and Gromit" franchise, an instructional video on how to draw Gromit, as well as "Cracking Contraptions" shorts.
A companion game, also titled Curse of the Were-Rabbit , was released with the film. A novelization, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: The Movie Novelization by Penny Worms ( ISBN 0-8431-1667-6), was also produced.
It was the last DreamWorks Animation film to be released on VHS. It was re-released on DVD on 13 May 2014 as part of a triple film set, along with fellow Aardman/DreamWorks films Chicken Run and Flushed Away . [20]
A Blu-ray edition of the film was released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in the United States on 4 June 2019. [21]
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit opened in 3,645 cinemas and had an opening weekend gross of $16 million, putting it at number one for that weekend. [22] During its second weekend it came in at number two, just $200,000 behind The Fog . [23] The Curse of the Were-Rabbit grossed $192.6 million at the box office, of which $56.1 million was from the United States. [24] As of January 2023 [update] , it is the second-highest-grossing stop-motion animated film of all time behind Aardman's first feature film, Chicken Run .
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 183 reviews and an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a subtly touching and wonderfully eccentric adventure featuring Wallace and Gromit." [25] On Metacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 87 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [26] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. [27]
In 2016, Empire magazine ranked it 51st on their list of the 100 best British films, with their entry stating, "The sparkling Curse Of The Were-Rabbit positively brims with ideas and energy, dazzling movie fans with sly references to everything from Hammer horrors and The Incredible Hulk to King Kong and Top Gun , and bounds along like a hound in a hurry. The plot pitches the famously taciturn Dogwarts' alumnus and his Wensleydale-chomping owner (Sallis) against the dastardly Victor Quartermaine (Fiennes), taking mutating bunnies, prize-winning marrows and the posh-as-biscuits Lady Tottington (Bonham Carter) along for the ride. In short, it's the most marvellously English animation there is." [28]
Group | Award | Recipients | Result |
---|---|---|---|
78th Academy Awards [29] | Best Animated Feature Film | Nick Park Steve Box | Won |
33rd Annie Awards [30] [31] | Best Animated Effects | Jason Wen | Won |
Best Animated Feature | Won | ||
Best Character Animation | Claire Billet | Won | |
Best Character Design in an Animated Feature Production | Nick Park | Won | |
Best Directing in an Animated Feature Production | Nick Park Steve Box | Won | |
Best Music in an Animated Feature Production | Julian Nott | Won | |
Best Production Design in an Animated Feature Production | Phil Lewis | Won | |
Best Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production | Bob Persichetti | Won | |
Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production | Peter Sallis as the voice of Wallace | Won | |
Best Writing in an Animated Feature Production | Steve Box Nick Park Mark Burton Bob Baker | Won | |
Best Character Animation | Jay Grace | Nominated | |
Christopher Sadler | Nominated | ||
Best Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production | Michael Salter | Nominated | |
Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production | Helena Bonham Carter as the voice of Lady Campanula Tottington | Nominated | |
Ralph Fiennes as the voice of Victor Quartermaine | Nominated | ||
Nicholas Smith as the voice of Reverend Clement Hedges | Nominated | ||
59th British Academy Film Awards [32] | Best British Film | Claire Jennings David Sproxton Nick Park Steve Box Mark Burton Bob Baker | Won |
British Academy Children's Awards [33] | Feature Film | Nick Park Steve Box Peter Lord David Sproxton | Won |
British Comedy Awards [34] | Best Comedy Film | Nick Park | Won |
11th Critics' Choice Awards [35] | Best Animated Feature | Nick Park and Steve Box | Won |
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association [36] | Best Animated Feature | Won | |
Empire Awards [37] | Best Director | Nick Park Steve Box | Won |
Best British Film | Nominated | ||
Best Comedy | Nominated | ||
Scene of the Year | Nominated | ||
Florida Film Critics Circle Awards 2005 [38] | Best Animated Film | Won | |
50th Hugo Awards [39] | Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form | Nominated | |
London Film Critics Circle Awards 2005 [40] | British Film of the Year | Nominated | |
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2005 [41] | Best Animated Film | Won | |
53rd Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards [42] | Best Sound Editing in Feature Film – Animated | Won | |
Golden Tomato Awards 2005 [43] | Best Animated Film | Won | |
Best Wide Release | Won | ||
New York Film Critics Online Awards 2005 [41] | Best Animated Film | Won | |
2006 Kids' Choice Awards [44] | Favorite Animated Movie | Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit | Nominated |
Online Film Critics Society Awards 2005 [45] | Best Animated Feature | Won | |
17th Producers Guild of America Awards [46] | Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures | Claire Jennings Nick Park | Won |
10th Satellite Awards [47] | Outstanding Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media | Nominated | |
32nd Saturn Awards [48] | Best Animated Film | Nominated | |
Toronto Film Critics Association Awards 2005 [49] | Best Animated Film | Nick Park and Steve Box | Won |
Visual Effects Society Awards 2005 [50] | Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Motion Picture | Lloyd Price for "Gromit" | Won |
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association [51] | Best Animated Film | Won |
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Film score by | ||||
Released | 11 October 2005 | |||
Genre | Film score | |||
Length | 48:11 | |||
Label | Varèse Sarabande | |||
Producer | Mark Wherry | |||
Julian Nott chronology | ||||
|
The film's score was composed by Julian Nott, who also scored the previous entries in the franchise. The score was produced by Hans Zimmer, and additional music was provided by Rupert Gregson-Williams, James Dooley, Lorne Balfe and Alastair King. [52]
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "A Grand Day Out" |
| 1:54 |
2. | "Anti-Pesto to the Rescue" |
| 3:18 |
3. | "Bless You, Anti-Pesto" |
| 1:56 |
4. | "Lady Tottington and Victor" |
| 2:03 |
5. | "Fire Up the Bun-Vac" |
| 1:47 |
6. | "Your Ladyship" |
| 1:07 |
7. | "Brainwash and Go" |
| 2:28 |
8. | "Harvest Offering" |
| 2:30 |
9. | "Arson Around" |
| 2:23 |
10. | "A Big Trap" |
| 3:27 |
11. | "The Morning After" |
| 1:44 |
12. | "Transformation" |
| 4:05 |
13. | "Ravaged in the Night" |
| 1:45 |
14. | "Fluffy Lover Boy" |
| 4:36 |
15. | "Kiss My Artichoke" |
| 4:31 |
16. | "Dogfight" |
| 3:39 |
17. | "Every Dog Has His Day" |
| 2:43 |
18. | "All Things Fluffy" |
| 1:07 |
19. | "Wallace and Gromit" | Nott | 1:08 |
Total length: | 48:11 |
After the box-office failure of Flushed Away resulted in a major write down for DreamWorks, it was reported on 3 October 2006 [53] and confirmed on 30 January 2007 [54] that DreamWorks had terminated their partnership with Aardman. In revealing the losses related to Flushed Away, DreamWorks also revealed they had taken a $29 million write down over Wallace & Gromit as well, the film had drastically underperformed expectations in the home DVD market, despite grossing $192 million against a budget of only $30 million at the box office. [55]
Following the split, Aardman retained complete ownership of the film, while DreamWorks Animation retained worldwide distribution rights in perpetuity, excluding some United Kingdom television rights and ancillary markets. [19] Soon after the end of the agreement, Aardman announced that they would proceed with another Wallace & Gromit project, later revealed to be a return to their earlier short films with A Matter of Loaf and Death for BBC One.
During production of the short, Park remarked publicly on difficulties with working with DreamWorks during the production of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, such as the constant production notes and demands to alter the material to appeal more to American children. [17] [56] This discouraged him from producing another feature film for years, with Lord noting that Park preferred the "half hour format". [57] However, in 2022, a new Wallace & Gromit film was announced, titled Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl , which is due to release in 2024 on Netflix worldwide, except for the UK, where it will first premiere on BBC before coming to Netflix at a later date. [58] [59] [60] Park will be returning as co-director and story co-writer alongside Merlin Crossingham. Kay reprises his role of Mackintosh, who has been promoted to chief inspector.
Wallace & Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy franchise created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations. The series centres on Wallace, a good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle. It consists of four short films, two feature-length films and has spawned numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The first short film, A Grand Day Out, was finished and released in 1989. Wallace was voiced by actor Peter Sallis until 2010 when he was succeeded by Ben Whitehead. While Wallace speaks very often, Gromit is largely silent and has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language.
Aardman Animations Limited, stylised as AARDMAN since 2022, is a British animation studio based in Bristol. It is known for films and television series made using stop motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its plasticine characters from Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Morph. After some experimental computer-animated short films during the late 1990s, beginning with Owzat (1997), Aardman entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away (2006). As of February 2020, it had earned $1.1 billion worldwide, with an average $135.6 million per film. Between 2000 and 2006, Aardman partnered with DreamWorks Animation.
Nicholas Wulstan Park is an English filmmaker and animator who created Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Early Man. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award a total of six times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 British stop-motion animated short film co-written and directed by Nick Park, produced by Aardman Animations in association with Wallace and Gromit Ltd., BBC Bristol, Lionheart Television and BBC Children's International. It is the second film featuring the titular duo, eccentric inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit, following A Grand Day Out (1989). In the film, a villainous penguin, Feathers McGraw, posing as a lodger, recruits Wallace by using his techno-trousers to steal a diamond from the city museum.
A Grand Day Out is a 1989 British stop-motion animated short film and the first instalment in the Wallace & Gromit series. It was directed, animated and co-written by Nick Park at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield and Aardman Animations in Bristol.
Peter John Sallis was an English actor. He was the original voice of Wallace in the Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit films and played Norman "Cleggy" Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine from its 1973 inception until the final episode in 2010, making him the only actor to appear in all 295 episodes. Additionally, he portrayed Norman Clegg's father in the prequel series First of the Summer Wine.
Flushed Away is a 2006 animated adventure comedy film directed by Sam Fell and David Bowers, produced by Cecil Kramer, David Sproxton, and Peter Lord, and written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and Will Davies. It was the third and final DreamWorks Animation film co-produced with Aardman Features following Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and was the first Aardman project mostly made in CGI animation as opposed to starting with their usual stop-motion – this was because using water on plasticine models could damage them, and it was complex to render the effect in another way. The film stars the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Shane Richie, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis and Jean Reno. In the film, a pampered fancy rat named Roddy St. James (Jackman) is flushed down the toilet in his Kensington apartment by a sewer rat named Sid (Richie), and befriends a scavenger named Rita Malone (Winslet) in order to get back home while evading a sinister toad (McKellen) and his hench-rats.
David Alan Sproxton is a British entrepreneur, best known as one of the co-founders, with Peter Lord, of the Aardman Animations studio. Sproxton was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 17 June 2006.
Peter Duncan Fraser Lord CBE is a British animator, director, producer and co-founder of the Academy Award-winning Aardman Animations studio, an animation firm best known for its clay-animated films and shorts, particularly those featuring plasticine duo Wallace & Gromit. He also directed Chicken Run along with Nick Park from DreamWorks Animation, and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! from Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 85th Academy Awards.
Steven Royston Box is an English animator and director who works for Aardman Animations.
Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death is a 2008 British stop motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations and created by Nick Park. It is the fourth short to star the titular characters of the Wallace & Gromit series, the first one since A Close Shave in 1995.
David Bowers is an English animator, storyboard artist, film director, screenwriter and voice actor.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a platform video game developed by Frontier Developments and published by Konami. It was released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles. It was released in 2005 in North America in September, Europe and Australia in October, and in Japan the following year on 16 March 2006 for the PlayStation 2. It is based on the film of the same name by DreamWorks Animation and Aardman Animations.
Christopher Sadler is a British animator, director and writer. He is primarily known for his work on Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Rex the Runt, Cracking Contraptions, Creature Comforts and Shaun the Sheep.
Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention is a British science-themed miniseries, starring Peter Sallis, Ashley Jensen, Jem Stansfield, and John Sparkes, produced by Aardman Animations, which aired on BBC One during 2010, from 3 November to 8 December and Channel 10 (Australia) during 2011, from 20 September to 6 October. The programme focuses on inventions based around various themes, and consists of live-action films interlaced with animated claymation segments hosted by characters Wallace & Gromit, featuring a side-plot connected to that episode's theme. While Sallis reprises his role as the voice of Wallace, live-action film segments were either narrated by Jensen or presented by Stansfield, with Sparkes providing the voice of Wallace and Gromit's unseen archivist Goronwy, a unique character for the programme.
Wallace & Gromit's Thrill-O-Matic is an indoor family dark ride at the Pleasure Beach Resort, an Amusement park in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. It opened in 2013, replacing The Gold Mine ride which opened in 1971 at a cost of £150,000, which closed in 2011. It is based on the Wallace & Gromit films and was opened in April 2013 by Nick Park, Amanda Thompson, Nick Thompson, Nick Farmer and Merlin Crossingham.
Gromit Unleashed 2 was a public arts trail in Bristol, England. The trail featured 67 giant sculptures designed by high-profile artists, designers, innovators and local talent. Sculptures are positioned in high footfall and iconic locations around Bristol and the surrounding area from 2 July to 2 September 2018. A sequel to Gromit Unleashed in 2013, the trail featured statues of Wallace on a life-size bench, Gromit, and Feathers McGraw. On the 23rd of August 2023 a fourth trail was announced, the trail in Bristol will run in 2025.
Aardman Animations is an animation studio in Bristol, England that produces stop motion and computer-animated features, shorts, TV series and adverts.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is a 2024 British stop motion animated comedy film produced by Aardman Animations and directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, featuring Park's characters from the Wallace & Gromit series. It is the sixth Wallace & Gromit film overall, the first since A Matter of Loaf and Death in 2008 and the second feature-length film following The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in 2005, serving as a full-length sequel to The Wrong Trousers (1993).
Earlier this year, Wallace and Gromit took the best British film at the main Bafta ceremony,...