It was recently announced that stop motion artist Nick Park is currently putting the finishing touches on a new Wallace and Gromit movie. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will be the pair’s latest adventure and their second full-length movie since 2005’s The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. But what fans are getting super excited for is the return of the arch nemesis, the chicken-impersonating, rubber glove-wearing penguin, Feathers McGraw! (Dun-dun-dah!)

Wallace the inventor and Gromit his pet dog (who is smarter than he is) first met Feathers in the short, The Wrong Trousers released in 1993. From the teaser trailer for the film, it looks as if McGraw is getting released from prison and he has a score to settle.

According to Netflix, Gromit is concerned when Wallace invents a “smart gnome” that begins to develop an evil 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!” says the streamer. Spoiler alert: it’s the penguin. The plot for the movie isn’t completely dissimilar to The Wrong Trousers where the bird made adjustments to Wallace’s robotic trousers forcing him to sleepwalk his way into a diamond heist.

Wallace and Gromit aren’t widely known in the U.S., but they are huge in the U.K. where Aardman Animations’ studio is located. Nick Park is the brains behind the first three short films, which include A Grand Day Out (1990), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (2008). All three have perfect Rotten Tomatoes scores at 100% and all three were nominated for Academy Awards (the latter two won Oscars.)

The success of these films led Park to create other stories with equally bizarre plotlines including Chicken Run (2000), Flushed Away (2001), Shaun the Sheep (2007), A Matter of Loaf and Death (another W and G short) (2008), Timmy Time (2009), Farmageddon (with Shaun the Sheep) (2019) and the Chicken Run sequel, Dawn of the Nugget (2022) among others.

For Vengeance Most Fowl, Park shared writing duties with Mark Burton (Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget) and directing duties with Merlin Crossingham (known for the TV series Wallace and Gromit’s World of Invention). The movie features the voices of Ben Whitehead (as Wallace), Adjoa Andoh, Reece Shearsmith and Diane Morgan.

Born in 1958, Nick Park began is movie-making career when he was 13 years old using his mom’s camera (and her help) a cotton bobbins. His inspiration for Wallace most likely comes from his amateur inventor father who has been known to create inventions made from items found in the house. He began work on A Grand Day Out while attending National Film and Television School. He joined Aardman Animations in 1985. Some of his first works there was creating the Penny short films for Pee-wee’s Playhouse and a segment in Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer music video.

Sadness erupted in 2005 when a fire broke out at the Aardman studio. Many of the models were destroyed but thankfully, but a few sets and props from The Wrong Trousers and A Matter of Loaf and Death were on loan at the time.

Today, the two movie stars made out of clay are so popular, a bronze sculpture of the two at the Market Hall in Preston, Lancashire, Park’s hometown. You can even “jump” into world of Wallace and Gromit at their “Thrill-O-Matic” dark ride located at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in Blackpool, Lancashire England. The ride features scenes from the pair’s famous adventures.

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will stream beginning on December 25, 2024, on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and Netflix.

Main Image: Wallace and Gromit (Aardman’s Animations/Netflix)