Big fan of the Aardman Animation flicks? Well, you are if you dug "Chicken Run," "Flushed Away," and "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." Unfortunately those last two flicks didn’t make enough money to keep DreamWorks happy, which is why Aardman now has a new home at Sony.
Much ink was spilled on how disappointing the "Flushed Away" box office was, and when DreamWorks bailed on their Aardman contract a few months later, a lot of animation fans in North America went "Aw, man. Not cool." Well now it’s Sony Animation to the rescue, as they’ve signed a deal with Aardman to bring a few of their new projects to American cinemas. (And one of those new ones might be another "Wallace & Gromit" adventure!)
Aardman chief Stephen Moore couldn’t resist taking one last shot at DreamWorks while celebrating his new Sony deal: "The thing that attracted us to Sony is that they have a very broad taste, and they are distributing 20 movies a year around the world … their desire to restrict us was much less, so we can make movies that follow Aardman’s instinctive style." In other words, as Variety points out, Sony will probably let the Aardmaneers do their own thing, whereas DW was a lot more "hands-on" than the filmmakers would have liked.
Apparently Jeffrey Katzenberg is convinced that the decidedly British Aardman attitude simply doesn’t sell well enough in the U.S., but hey, the guys have made three damn good films, regardless of box office, so this new Sony deal is good news all around.
Source: Variety
