Who doesn’t love Aardman? Since the 1970s the animation studio has been delighting audiences with their (mostly) claymation creations. They’ve given us Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run (including a belated, Mel Gibson-less sequel), Shaun the Sheep, and parts of Peter Gabriel’s mind-blowing video for “Sledgehammer.” And now, alas, they’re in a pickle.
Per The Telegraph, Newclay Products, the company that has long provided Aardman with a special clay, called Newplast, has gone out of business. Perhaps that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the clay Aardman has been using for eons helps give the films their special look. News of the company’s closing came as such a shock to Aardman that they bought up whatever Newplast they had left. Now they only have enough clay for one more movie, namely the Wallace and Gromit movie slated for next year.
When that film comes out, it will already be missing one key component: Peter Sallis, the voice of cheese-loving crackpot inventor Wallace since the first short, A Grand Day Out. Sallis passed away in 2017. His last stint as the beloved character was in the 2009 short A Matter of Loaf and Death.
Could Aardman find a new clay company? Almost certainly. Will it be the same? Maybe not. But for now, there’s always the forthcoming Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, which hits Netflix on December 15. You can watch the trailer below.
(Via The Telegraph)