Wallace & Gromit to return with new film ‘next Christmas’

Wallace and Gromit are back!

The as-of-yet-untitled film features Wallace and his inventions, and this time he's developed a "smart gnome" that Gromit is suspicious of.

Although an official broadcast date has not been confirmed, the BBC reports that the movie will be shown by the broadcaster over the festive period next year.

It therefore seems very likely that the new adventure from Wallace and his canine companion will be broadcast on Christmas Day itself.

If this is the case, it will be 16 years to the day since the last Wallace & Gromit film, A Matter of Loaf and Death, was broadcast on Christmas Day 2008.

The new film will be the second major release for Aardman Animations, with the Chicken Run sequel, Dawn of the Nugget, having been released this December.

Since its founding in the early 1970s, the stop-motion studio has become world famous for its creations, and the 2024 Wallace & Gromit film will be Aardman's 10th feature film.

Stop-motion animation involves animators take one frame of film, before fractionally altering the plasticine and taking another frame. The process is a long one, and it usually takes creators an entire day to make just one second of film.

Speaking about what makes stop-motion so special, Dawn of the Nugget director Sam Fell said: “Every other kind of animation is ultimately about copying reality.

“It’s either drawings of things in the real world, or ­replicas in pixels and code. But here, the things we make actually do come to life.

“Even after so many years, it still feels like a strange kind of black magic.”

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