'Wallace & Gromit' Will Return with 'Vengeance Most Fowl'
Feathers McGraw in 'Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl'
Aardman Animations/PA
Netflix initially announced in January 2022 that it was partnering with the BBC and beloved Plasticine stop-motion storyteller outfit Aardman Animations to finance more old-school (but sadly expensive) animated films after seeing success with Shaun the Sheep as part of its family offerings. The deal at the time was for two feature films: a sequel to the surprise 2005 hit Chicken Run, bringing back the chicken cult of Ginger and Rocky, and a brand new Wallace and Gromit adventure.
Sadly, the Chicken Run film, Dawn of the Nugget, was not nearly as good as the original, which was a deep disappointment to fans. However, everyone still has hope that the beloved inventor and his much more intelligent pup will do better since their last movie, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Luckily, Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park has done everyone a solid by bringing back the duo's most famous antagonist: Feathers McGraw, the Penguin who disguises himself as a Chicken (with the help of a rubber glove hat) and commits deeply devious crimes while in disguise. Feathers was initially introduced in the 1993 "The Wrong Trousers" and is featured in one of Wallace and Gromit's best sequences of all time: The Train Chase. Gromit (with Wallace taking the credit) captured the foul fowl at the end of the short, but apparently, he's now out of jail, and rather than flying the coop, he's returning to London to take revenge on those who stuck him in a cage.
In the press release, Park admitted, “I’d had the idea of a film about garden gnomes turning bad for more than a decade, but I could never work out what made them bad. It occurred to me that the single most asked question I get when I meet fans is, will the penguin Feathers McGraw, Wallace and Gromit’s original antagonist from The Wrong Trousers 30 years ago, ever return?... Then it hit me: What if Feathers was involved with these gnomes? We’re hoping that this film will appeal to fans of Gnome Noir everywhere and that people will be gratified when they see what Feathers has been up to since The Wrong Trousers.”
Wallace and Gromit with their new lorry featuring their business de jour, Gnome Improvements, in 'Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl'
Aardman Animations/PA
Here's the film's synopsis:
In this next installment, Gromit’s concern that Wallace is becoming too dependent on his inventions proves justified, when Wallace invents a “smart” gnome that seems to develop a mind of its own. When it emerges that a vengeful figure from the past might be masterminding things, it falls to Gromit to battle sinister forces and save his master… or Wallace may never be able to invent again!
As always, Ben Whitehead will again play Wallace the Inventor, the eccentric, cheese-loving inventor from the north of England. (Whitehead took over the role from original voice actor Peter Sallis, who passed away in 2017.) Peter Kay (Doctor Who) returns as PC Mackintosh, now promoted to DCI. New voices include Reece Shearsmith (Good Omens), Diane Morgan (Philomena Cunk), Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton), Lenny Henry (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), and Lauren Patel (Lloyd of the Flies).
Nick Park directs, with writer Mark Burton, who wrote the screenplay from an idea the two came up with. Richard Beek is producing.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will debut on iPlayer and Netflix in time for the 2024 holiday season.
