WallaceAndGromit.net

First off, on January 31st the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it’s nominees for the Academy awards. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was on the long list for “Best animated feature film of the year” and it now joins Howl’s Moving Castle and Tim Burton\u2019s Corpse Bride on the actual nominees list! Check out all the nominees over here on Oscars.org’s 78th Academy Awards Nominees page.

Next, perhaps in more exciting news, Wallce and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit sweeped all 10 categories it was nominated in! By far leading the way in the awards. You can check out all the nominees and winners on the Annie Awards Nominees and Winners page. Way to go Wallace and Gromit!

And finally, today was the US DVD release of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit! I’m so excited, I wasn’t able to get it today, but I’m sure I’ll have it soon enough. The UK release isn’t until the 20th, but Daniel Brett emailed me with this link from dvdtimes.co.uk that includes detailed information, a high-res image and screenshots of the DVD menus, thanks Daniel!

In the first bit of news, this week at the London Toy Fair Nick Park was there to present his new game Fleeced

There are a few covers floating around the internet, Daniel Brett pointed me to this one at forbiddenplanet.co.uk which also includes some details of the game. We should know more when more photos and reports get put online from the Fair. You can also check out the Reuters article: Gromit ready to rise from the ashes: Park for quotes from Park.

Also in the news, Wallce and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit has been nominated for the BAFTA Alexander Korda Award for the Outstanding British Film of the Year! You can check out the complete list here.

And finally, a friend of mine knows all about my love for Wallace and Gromit, so she took her knitting skills and made those greatest thing for me:

Amazing! It’s so comfy 🙂

Daniel Brett emailed me this week, at first I believed the alternate DVD cover that he found being for the UK dvd.

The amazon.co.uk page that this image came from also has a release date for the Region 2 (Europe, Japan, South Africa and the Middle East including Egypt) listed: February 20, 2006.

Another interesting thing I noticed was this: Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1 – Yes! The film won’t be released on DVD for over a month still and it’s topped amazon.co.uk’s Top Sellers already!

Then I hopped over to the US site, and it turns out the US page has a very similar cover! So what was that cover I reported on in the last entry? A preliminary one? I have to say, I do like this new one more.

Now it has been a busy awards season for Wallace and Gromit, here are some awards I haven’t previously mentioned:

Best Animated Film – Dallas-Forth Worth Film Critics Association Awards
Best Animated Film – Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
Best Animated Film – Toronto Film Critics Association Awards
Best Animated Feature – The Critics’ Choice Awards
Best-Reviewed Wide Release & Best Reviewed Animation – RottenTomatoes.com

Keep track of many of these awards yourself over at IMDB.com: Awards for Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

Also in the news for Aardman, Variety.com reports:

“Stephen Moore, formerly president of international at 20th Century Fox, has joined Bristol-based clay-animation studio Aardman as chief operating officer and head of features.

Company is also looking to revive “The Tortoise and the Hare,” a project it closed down after a few months in production because of creative problems.”

It’s not all good news for Aardman, however. c21media.net reports:

“DreamWorks Animation has posted a loss and a write-off related to Aardman movie Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit. Despite the film’s international success, it performed worse than expected stateside.”

Oh no! I really wish Dreamworks had pushed this film more, it was a much better one than Madagascar and so few people knew about it. Let’s hope DVD sales will help.

Lastly, the voice actor for Wallace, Peter Sallis, was recently unknowingly involved in a soap-making scam. News & Star reports:

“A FAKE scientist from Brampton employed the voice-over star of Wallace and Gromit to help him swindle a small fortune out of funding bodies, a court heard today.

His career as a conman came to an abrupt end yesterday when a judge jailed him for two years and three months.”

That’s all for now.

There has been some speculation recently as to the actual DVD cover for the upcoming dvd. Daniel Brett dropped me an email on December 23rd linking to this article which has a possible DVD cover. He’s seen this cover in a few places, so perhaps it’s the UK version’s cover?

Amazon has updated their website with the region one cover:

The Amazon site also has more details about the DVD. They are also offering Wallace & Gromit 2 DVD Cracking Collector’s Set which includes Curse and the three shorts!

In other news, it’s the time of year for critics top movie lists for the year and Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit made a bunch of them:

Michael Sragow’s favorite films (#5)
Weather or not, here we go: The best of ’05 (#5)
Film: Year of the Bat (#9)
What an amazing trip it’s been (#10)

Lastly, there is this article: Farmer’s vow as film boosts demand. The maker of Stinking Bishop cheese has been unable to keep up with the 500% increase in demand for his cheese following the release of Curse and is only currently only able to about 20% of the orders coming in. Interesting to read about the impact Wallace and Gromit can have on small business!

This is just a quick update to let everyone know there is now a US release date for the DVD! Feburary 7th 2006! The official site, wandg.com does not yet give any details of the DVD, but this article has a little information.

I am not sure if the UK release date will be the same.

I know what I want for Valentine’s day! 🙂

First off, the news from Aardman is that the fire that destroyed all most props from all the old films back in October was caused by “faulty wiring.”

They believe a faulty CCTV system or water heater was to blame for the fire which destroyed the entire collection of Wallace and Gromit props and models.

The two-month investigation found the fire had started accidentally in a ground-floor office in the Grade-II listed building.

Read whole BBC article: Aardman fire caused by electrics

In better news, Wallce and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit brought home the award for Best Animation at the The Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards on December 10th. Yay! You can check out all the winners on the LAFCA website: 2005 LAFCA Awards.

I was delighted to learn today that Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit gained a total of 15 Nominations for the upcoming Annie Awards, presented by the International Animated Film Society.

Britain’s Aardman Animations has taken a commanding lead for the upcoming Annie Awards, winning 15 nominations for its latest Wallace & Gromit film.
…
In addition to winning nominations in categories such as directing, writing, storyboarding, effects, music and character design, the film’s four main voice actors – Peter Sallis, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Nicholas Smith – shut out all other competitors for the voice acting in an animated feature category. –‘Wallace & Gromit’ leads nominees for Annie Awards.

Curse was nominated for: Best Animated Feature, Animated Effects, 3 times for Character Animation, Character Design in an Animated Feature Production, Directing in an Animated Feature Production, Music in an Animated Feature Production, Production Design in an Animated Feature Production, 2 times for Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production, all 4 nominations for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production, Writing in an Animated Feature Production

You can check out all the categories, details and nominees on the official Annie Awards website: For Your Consideration: 2005 ANNIE AWARD NOMINATIONS BY CATEGORY.

I’m gearing up for a busy awards season 🙂

The big news this week is that Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is one of the 10 films on the list for an Oscar nomination for best animated film. It’s got some intense competition to win, but I am confident it’ll make the cut for a nomination. Nominations will be announced January 31, 2006. BBC.co.uk: Gromit film makes Oscar longlist

I also came across this article: Wallace and Gromit Boost Cheese Sales. It talks about how the film release has boosted Wensleydale cheese sales!

Wallace’s premier pleasure in life is Wensleydale cheese, which is made in northern England, and UK supermarkets have seen a massive 23 per cent sales increase since The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit hit cinemas.

I have bought Wensleydale cheese quite regularly for a few years now, and have posted 3 different Wallace and Gromit cheese labels that I’ve purchased on the Wensleydale Cheese section. The most recent is one for the film!

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit topped the UK boxoffice charts for 3 weeks in a row (BBC article here). Can they do it again? We’ll see!

I spent some time today updating a few sections of the site. I added several pictures to the main Wallace and Gromit Movie Pictures Page. And added a whole section for Toys and other items after Jordan Bellamy sent me a bunch of photos of things relating to the film that he had bought, check out that section: The Wallace and Gromit Movie Toys and other Items, and feel free to email me if you have cool things to add!

Not much else to report, nearly all of the articles I’m finding regarding Wallace and Gromit are simply movie and game reviews. The movie reviews are still quite positive, game reviews lead me to believe the game is aimed at kids (pity!) but pretty decent for a “based off a movie” game.

In honor of the film release this year I carved my pumpkin as Gromit!

Started off with just a sketch copied from an old Wallace and Gromit calendar I have.

Gromit pumpkin after a few cuts

Nearly finished

Posing in my Princess Leia halloween costume next to the completed Gromit Pumpkin