DreamWorks and Aardman's Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit at 20

 Close to 10 years since delighting the audience in a charming short, the iconic British animated duo, Wallace and Gromit, would finally star in a theatrical film, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Bet that a common question at the time it was first announced was “What took so long?”.

 

To have a better understanding, here’s a brief history of the characters. The eccentric cheese fanatic inventor, Wallace, and his silent intelligent dog, Gromit, were first conceived in a series of sketches by animator Nick Park. While working on their first film, A Grand Day Out, Nick would take his characters to the initially small British stop motion studio called Aardman and the duo would star in three acclaimed short films. The second, The Wrong Trousers, and third, A Close Shave, would win the Academy Award.

 

After the third short, Nick Park and Aardman would put their focus on their first feature film, Chicken Run (2000). When the film proved to be a critical and commercial success, their collaborative studio, DreamWorks SKG, was eager to co-produce a feature film starring Wallace and Gromit, which was Greenlit in 2000. Of course, the first challenge was to come up with an idea that would be better suited for a feature instead of a typical short. It was soon thought that, like how Chicken Run spoofed prison escape films, the feature debut of Wallace and Gromit should be a spoof of classic horror pictures, in particular classic werewolf films. But instead of a flesh and blood eating monster, a vegetable ravaging rabbit monster was conceived because of the absurdity of it.

 

While production of Chicken Run was smooth, unfortunately, production of the follow-up was far from it. In contrast to the last film, the DreamWorks executives kept sending notes to Nick Park. What Nick found frustrating was that DreamWorks kept asking to “Tone down the Britishness”, which makes little sense in retrospect because the charm of the works Aardman has done is from the eccentric Britishness. The reason for this was because DreamWorks wished for the film to appeal to American children. Another was because DreamWorks was nervous after losing millions thanks to the failure of Sindbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003). Another note that Nick said “No” to was replacing the voice of Wallace, Peter Sallis, with a well-known American celebrity. But as a compromise, celebrities, Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, who previously starred in DreamWorks’ The Prince of Egypt (1998), were cast as the heroine and villain respectfully. Another issue was the title of the film. At first, it was to be called Wallace & Gromit: The Great Vegetable Plot, but DreamWorks that having the word vegetable in the title would be unappealing to children. In that, it was changed to The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as a nod to the Hammer Film, The Curse of the Werewolf (1961).

 

Even after all that, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was released in October of 2005 to glowing reviews. It was also a moderate box-office success but, unfortunately, DreamWorks was disappointed with the final US box-office gross and took a write-down because of it.

 

Tension between the two studios would reach a point where, in early 2007, Aardman and DreamWorks announced that they would stop working together. This was due to the facing a lot of creative differences on the 2006 film, Flushed Away, which, while critically well-received, bombed at the box office.

 

After the companies split, Nick Park would direct a fourth Wallace and Gromit short, A Matter of Loaf and Death, which aired on television in 2008. But the not to pleasant experience directing the feature put Nick off from directing another feature film because, according to Aardman co-founder, Peter Lord, he preferred directing simple 30-minute films instead. It wouldn’t be until 2018 that Nick would direct another feature, Early Man, which also tanked in theaters. But he would at least bring back Wallace and Gromit in 2024 for a second feature film called Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, which was later released on Netflix in early 2025.