Film / News
Shaun the Sheep release date set
It’s official: Aardman‘s Shaun the Sheep movie will be in cinemas from February 6, 2015.
The Oscar-winning Bristol animation studio’s first collaboration with French company StudioCanal is currently nearing completion up at Aardman’s Aztec West studio. It gives a starring role to Shaun, the popular diminutive ovine spin-off character from Nick Park‘s Wallace and Gromit short A Close Shave, who was voted the nation’s best loved children’s TV character in a recent Radio Times Poll. Take that, Postman Pat!
The story has Shaun taking the day off to have some fun. Alas, this leads to the Farmer being whisked away from Mossy Bottom Farm to the scary big city, whereupon Shaun, Bitzer the Gromit-esque sheepdog and the gang have to rescue him. Shaun’s fans know that the TV series is awash with pop culture references and will be delighted to see a Silence of the Lambs gag in the film’s new teaser trailer. It also introduces one of two new characters to Shaun’s world: animal containment warden Trumper, who rules the city’s animal shelter with a rod of iron. We’ve yet to see the inner city orphan dog named Slip, who comes to our heroes’ rescue.
The film is co-written and directed by Richard Starzak, aka Richard ‘Golly’ Goleszowski, and Mark Burton. Golly is an Aardman veteran, whose credits include Creature Comforts and Robbie the Reindeer. He also created the original Shaun spin-off TV series. Burton first worked with Aardman on the studio’s debut feature, Chicken Run, and was one of the four credited writers of Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Shaun the Sheep is Aardman’s sixth movie after Chicken Run (2000), Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Flushed Away (2006), Arthur Christmas (2011) and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (2012).
For more info, see the Shaun the Sheep website.
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