SALT LAKE CITY — They stop a devious penguin’s diamond heist, save a herd of sheep from a robotic cyber-dog and spend a day eating cheese on the moon.
Now, according to "Wallace and Gromit" creator and Aardman Animations director Nick Park, the endearing duo will be having at least one more “grand day out.”
“I feel I'm onto a good idea,” Park told The Hollywood Reporter this week, “and I can't give too much away because it would spoil it really, but it's Wallace and Gromit up to their old antics.”
Park told the Hollywood Reporter that he has several new adventures in mind for the claymation man and his favorite canine. He isn’t ruling out another feature film —Wallace and Gromit starred in “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” in 2005 — but says shorter films are much more attractive to him at the moment.
“I think having just reached (age) 60, you sort of start to think how much can I do, you know?” Park said. “And I've got so many ideas, and feature films just take so long. So, I'm not saying 'no' but at the moment, a half hour seems far more attractive I must say.”
The last film Park worked on was “Early Man” in 2017, which took five years to make, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He said a 30-minute short like the original Wallace and Gromit shorts takes about a year to make.
Park says he’s also considering a return to his mockumentary series “Creature Comforts” from the '90s, which used interviews of people describing their homes as the soundtrack for animated zoo animals to make them appear to be talking about their experiences living in the zoo.
“I've always loved the idea of doing more in the 'Creature Comforts' vein,” Park said. “There are so many people out there you can interview so you'll never run out of material and diverse characters.”
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Wallace and Gromit film, “A Grand Day Out.” Park told “The Hollywood Reporter” how it felt to see his creations get so popular.
“I can't believe it really that these are just a couple of characters that I came up with at college,” Park said. “And now just to see they are still on primetime television is amazing to me. I have to pinch myself still, it's more than I ever dreamed of to be honest.”