Although a sequel to Aardman’s animated stop-motion movie “Chicken Run” is being prepared, one of the original film’s voice actors Mel Gibson will not be returning, two people with knowledge of the production told TheWrap.
Because the sequel to “Chicken Run” will go into production next year, one person explains that it is too early to know about the voice cast for an animated film, but Gibson, who voiced the Rocky character in the 2000 movie, be asked back for the sequel.
It’s also unclear if any of the other voice actors in the original movie, which also included Julia Sawalha, Phil Daniels, Imelda Staunton, and Timothy Spall, will be returning for the sequel.
Also read: Winona Ryder Calls Hollywood Anti-Semitism and Repeats Mel Gibson’s ‘Oven Dodger’ Comments
The film, which will be distributed by Netflix and will go into production next year, will pick up the story of the chickens that managed to escape Tweedy’s farm in the original movie where Ginger (voiced in the original by Sawalha) finally found his dream: a Pacific island sanctuary for the entire herd, away from the dangers of the human world. When she and Rocky (originally Gibson) are born to a girl named Molly, Ginger’s happy ending seems complete. But on the continent, all kinds of chicken face a terrible new threat. For Ginger and her team, even if that means putting their own hard-earned freedom at risk, this time, they’re in!
Sam Fell (“Flushed Away”, “ParaNorman”) will direct the new film based on a script by Karey Kirkpatrick, John O’Farrell and Rachel Tunnard; Nick Park, creator of Aardman hits like “Wallace and Gromit” and “Shaun the Sheep”, will have a consulting role in the film.
Steve Pegram and Leyla Hobart will produce, while Peter Lord, Carla Shelley and Karey Kirkpatrick will return as executive producers.
The 2000 “Chicken Run” grossed nearly $ 225 million at the worldwide box office and remains the highest-grossing stop-motion animated hit of all time.
Gibson made headlines this week after Winona Ryder shouted homophobic and anti-Semitic comments the actor allegedly made in 1995. Gibson, through his representative, said Ryder is lying.
A timeline of the history of Stop-Motion animation, from ‘A Journey to the Moon’ to ‘Lost Link’ (Photos)
This week, groundbreaking studio Laika returns with “Missing Link,” the stop-motion animated family movie starring Hugh Jackman and Zach Galifianakis. With “Missing Link” landing in theaters on Friday, TheWrap reviews the history of stop-motion animation, which dates back to the dawn of cinema.
LAIKA / Annapurna Photos
“The Humpty Dumpty Circus” (1898)
Stop-motion in its most basic form is an animation technique in which a filmmaker physically moves an object, taking pictures of each new position, creating the illusion of movement when the series of pictures is played back in sequence. The Humpty Dumpty Circus, created between 1897 and 1898, is believed to be the first film made using the technique. Directors J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith used their daughters’ wrists to imagine acrobats and moving animals.
Unfortunately, the movie has been lost to history, and it’s not even clear if anything he survives. In fact, the images that supposedly belong to the movie may actually be photographs of a popular children’s toy set sold in the early 20th century.
Youtube
“A trip to the moon” (1902)
Early shorts like “The Enchanted Drawing” (1900) or “Fun in a Bakery Shop” (1902) continued the development of stop-motion techniques, with on-screen actors manipulating drawings or piles of dough as if by magic. Most famously, the magician-turned-filmmaker Georges Méliès used the “stop trick” with a dazzling effect for his science fiction short “A Trip to the Moon.”
“The lost world” (1925)
Based on the fantasy story of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Lost World” is the first American feature film with stop-motion animation, and possibly the first film of its kind ever made. Animator Willis O’Brien developed several lasting innovations during the production of “The Lost World”. Among them were several dozen model dinosaurs, and a technique to get stop-motion images and live action on the screen at the same time. These breakthroughs laid the foundation for O’Brien’s most famous stop-motion achievement: the 1933 “King Kong”.
“The tale of the fox” (1930)
Polish photographer Wladislaw Starewicz took stop motion style to new heights with this fully animated fable “The Tale of the Fox”. The film’s expressive puppets of foxes, rats, cats, and insects made of wax and wire served as direct inspiration to filmmakers such as Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson for their “Fantastic Mr. Fox”.
Mubi
“The George Pal Puppets” (1940)
Animator George Pal is credited with developing the “replacement animation” technique. Rather than requiring the puppets to have a malleable head, Pal created numerous wooden heads, each with slightly different facial expressions that could be replaced and used to convey any emotion or anything the puppet needed to say. In 1940, he began making short films for Paramount, and in 1944, Pal won an honorary Oscar for his technique.
Alan Light / Wikipedia
Jiří Trnka (1947)
Known as the “Walt Disney of Eastern Europe”, the Czech animator Jiří Trnka once said: “A puppet is not a miniature human being. It has its own world.” Trnka’s films from 1947 were made primarily for adults, and the studio puppets had highly sophisticated designs and movements that made them more suitable for stop motion animation.
Antal Kotnyek, Fortepan
Gumby (1955) and “Davey and Goliath” (1961)
Art Clokey, a pioneer in modeling animation (“modeling clay”), created Gumby for “The Howdy Doody Show” in 1955. He later developed the faith-based children’s show “Davey and Goliath” (sponsored by the Lutheran Church).
NBC
“Jason and the Argonauts” (1963)
Ray Harryhausen, one of the most influential entertainers ever, was a protégé of Willis O’Brien and worked with him until he finally had the opportunity to direct a project in 1953 with the movie “The 20,000 Fathoms Beast”. Harryhausen developed the “Dynamation” technique that helped integrate live action with stop-motion models. Harryhausen made his masterpiece with “Jason and the Argonauts” from 1963, and the scope of the battle of skeletons and the creation of the film’s hydra was an ambitious leap above his previous films.
Columbia Pictures
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (1964)
In 1964 Rankin / Bass Productions, Inc. released this classic stop-motion instant animated short on NBC. Since then, the Christmas special has become a Christmas tradition, airing regularly on CBS to this day. Rankin / Bass would produce many more Christmas specials, and these shows, along with Gumby, were instrumental in raising the profile of stop-motion for two generations of children.
CBS
“Almádena” (1986)
In 1986, rocker Peter Gabriel would work with Nick Park and Aardman Animation, the studio that would eventually create “Wallace and Gromit” and “Chicken Run,” to make a music video for his song “Sledgehammer.” Gabriel sat under a sheet of glass for 16 hours, as each painting was individually photographed thoroughly. The music video for “Sledgehammer” would become the most awarded video in the VMAs, and remains highly influential to this day.
“The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993)
By far the most ambitious stop motion animated film to date, Henry Selick and Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” has 109,440 frames created by a team of 120 workers across 20 sound stages. It was made for $ 18 million and grossed $ 76.2 million, spawning a small wave of other stop motion movies like “James and the Giant Peach” and “Gumby: The Movie” just as Pixar’s digital animation was about to take off.
Buena Vista photos
“The wrong pants” (1993)
The “Sledgehammer” video was Aardman Animation’s first big break, but it was his Wallace and Gromit shorts about a handyman and his dog that put them on the map. His 1993 half-hour short “The Wrong T Pants” earned the studio its first Oscar, a feat he repeated two years later with the sequel, “A Close Shave.”
Aardman Animation
“Chicken Run” (2000)
Aardman Animation’s first feature film was the first in a massive partnership of four $ 250 million films between Aardman and DreamWorks. “Chicken Run” earned $ 224 million worldwide on a budget of $ 45 million. However, in 2005, Aardman suffered a severe fire in which all his sets and memories were lost.
Dreamworks
“Coraline” (2009)
You can probably count on one hand the number of movies that made RealD 3-D seem like the next big thing, and “Coraline” was one of them. Henry Selick’s movie, the first for animation company LAIKA, still looks great today because computers were used only to enhance the traditional animation process.
Universal tables
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009)
Before 2009, Wes Anderson seemed like a stop motion animator who was always filming in live action. It was intended to make “Fantastic Mr. Fox”, the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel. “I have always loved stop motion animation and I particularly wanted to stop motion with puppets that have fur, for whatever reason. I have always liked it,” he once told Collider.
20th century fox
Georges Méliès, Ray Harryhausen, Nick Park, Henry Selick and Wes Anderson are all pioneers in the genre.
This week, groundbreaking studio Laika returns with “Missing Link,” the stop-motion animated family movie starring Hugh Jackman and Zach Galifianakis. With “Missing Link” landing in theaters on Friday, TheWrap reviews the history of stop-motion animation, which dates back to the dawn of cinema.
