Summary

Vengeance Most Fowl pays homage to Wallace and Gromit’s past adventures, bringing back beloved characters like Feathers McGraw.

Feathers McGraw’s scariness is linked to his mystery, stillness, and slight movements, enhancing his screen presence.

Ben Whitehead impressively embodies the late Peter Sallis as the voice of Wallace while adding his own unique touch to the character.

Few animated characters are as iconic as the inventor human-dog duo, Wallace and Gromit. Since their moon-landing introduction in 1989, they’ve captured the hearts of audiences all around the world, going beyond their very British brand. They are the bread and butter of Bristol-based animation studio, Aardman, who have also produced the Chicken Run and Shaun of the Sheep franchises. As computer animation has become the new norm, it’s always refreshing to see the work of Aardman, as every meticulous aspect of the arduous craft of claymation is evident in every single shot.
To kick off 2025, Aardman is bringing back the dynamic duo to the big screen for the first time in 20 years, following their 2005 feature film, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Whereas that was a riff on Hammer’s monster brand of horror movies, their latest offering, Vengeance Most Fowl, combines modern sci-fi fears with James Bond action. Vengeance Most Fowl stands out in the Wallace & Gromit series of adventures, as it feels like an accumulation of the past nearly 40 years we’ve spent with the pair. Fans will delight in the small and big references to the past — from returning characters to subtle gags.
The most central of all these is, of course, the return of the demented penguin (sometimes chicken) Feathers McGraw, who we met back in 1993 in The Wrong Trousers. Collider had the opportunity to talk to co-directors Nick Park (co-creator of Wallace & Gromit) and Merlin Crossingham about their new movie, why a Penguin disguised as a chicken is so terrifying, and how Ben Whitehead was able to easily slip into the knit green sweater vest of the late, great Peter Sallis as the voice of Wallace.
‘Vengeance Most Fowl’ Refers Back to All of Wallace and Gromit’s Past Adventures

COLLIDER: Congratulations! Just when you think you can’t beat the last one, you come back. As a lifelong fan, what I love so much about Vengeance Most Fowl is how referential it is to the past adventures. I think this really is a reward for the lifelong fans who’ve been there from the start. Was that something intentional? Did you want this to feel accumulative of the journey of Wallace and Gromit so far?
NICK PARK: I think that’s a good way of putting it, actually. Very, very much so. It felt like that kind of movie, and especially as it’s linked very much with The Wrong Trousers. We haven’t done that before or revived characters from other films before like this, so it has that connection with at least The Wrong Trousers and Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
MERLIN CROSSINGHAM: It’s the first time we’ve had to actually be conscious in one film of what’s happened before because, like Nick says, it’s the first time other characters have been brought back into the world of Wallace and Gromit. So, we had to be careful about what PC Mukherjee knew about Wallace and what his attitude was based on what he did in Were-Rabbit, and the same for Feathers. It’s very nice to wrap that texture and that depth into the story with the characters.
You say it’s the first time you’ve brought characters back, and obviously, it’s been 16 years since A Matter of Loaf and Death. Why now, and why this project to make it more connected to a past film?
PARK: Well, it’s always about the idea, having a really big, strong idea for Wallace and Gromit. I guess this has a kind of evolution to it, this idea; it kind of happened in two stages. One of them, the first stage, was back around Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I had this idea about Wallace inventing a smart gnome, a robot gnome, and that seemed really good fun. There’s lots in there. And that was like a 30-minute film, actually, at the time.
CROSSINGHAM: It was a short film.
PARK: Then later on, we started reviving the idea and it seemed to have potential. Then Merlin and Mark Burton, the writer, joined together, and it suddenly became a feature-length film because that’s when the idea to bring back Feathers McGraw came.
CROSSINGHAM: It was very late-breaking, actually. The whole film kind of expanded from there. So, it wasn’t an intention from the beginning for Feathers to feature there.
PARK: Like we say, we were even intending to do a feature film then, but it gave it such a big boost to the story. It suddenly had the legs.
CROSSINGHAM: It needed it.
PARK: It had this motivated villain with a personal vendetta, so it upped the ante to no end.

Related

Win Free Tickets to Our ‘Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ FYC Screening and Q&A

Directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham will join us in LA on January 6 for a screening and exclusive Q&A.

Feathers McGraw Returns as the Evil Penguin Has Its Sights Set on Wallace and Gromit

Image Via Netflix

It’s so funny that you have a penguin — or a chicken — who doesn’t even have a mouth, and yet he is genuinely terrifying. I was probably four when I watched The Wrong Trousers, and of course, I was scared, but as a 27-year-old, I’m like, “God, this guy is scary!” I feel like it’s the eyes, but what do you guys think it is for Feathers McGraw that makes him so terrifying?
PARK: I think it’s the mystery. You put your finger on it. It’s kind of the mystery, isn’t it? And the unknown — not giving much away.
CROSSINGHAM: You always think he’s thinking something. A lot of movie villains and baddies have a sort of a stillness. If someone is running away from them, they never run after them. They walk, and they get their henchmen — well, in this case it would be henchgnomes, but they get their henchpeople to do the dirty work for them. Feathers is just like that. He’s not breaking a sweat for anybody, and it’s that stillness and that calmness that I think makes him come across as evil to the core.
PARK: Gives him a screen presence, doesn’t it? We debate over blinks because we have him turn and blink maybe once or twice, and everyone thinks he’s thinking something. With the right music and the right little move-in on the camera or whatever.
CROSSINGHAM: It’s very important for us as filmmakers to hold our nerve and not to overcook him and not to make him do too much because his superpower is in his stillness. So, for us, it’s just kind of having that confidence that he can hold the screen. He’s only tiny, but he does have that presence, and people do make that connection with him.
PARK: This is his scale here. He’s literally that high.
He’s so tiny! He feels larger than life.
Ben Whitehead Takes Over From the Late Peter Sallis as Wallace

I think what people are going to be very pleasantly surprised by is how much Ben Whitehead sounds like Peter Sallis. It’s kind of uncanny, and I think he does a brilliant job. When you were hiring Ben, was your main intention, “You have to sound exactly like Peter as possible,” or is there anything that Ben has brought that’s new to Wallace that you’ve actually been pleasantly surprised by?
PARK: Yeah, In a way, it was a great, lovely sort of happenchance the way he was with us already. We didn’t have to look for him. He played a background character in Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and we found out then that he could do a fantastic mimic of Wallace. Then, he got better over the years.
CROSSINGHAM: And at that point, because he was essentially Peter’s understudy, picking up work that Peter either didn’t want to do or couldn’t do, Ben needed to sound as much like Peter as he could. But now, with this being a role, we do acknowledge that Ben isn’t Peter. As an artist, he is himself, and so while he and we make every effort to honor what Peter established, Ben will always be Ben. It’s very important he does bring a bit of himself to the role, as well, because otherwise, we rob him of his ability to act if we ask him not to do that. So, I think what Ben has managed to do is find a lovely balance between the two, and we’re very proud of what he’s done.

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Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Release Date

January 3, 2025

Director

Nick Park

Cast

Reece Shearsmith
, Ben Whitehead
, Peter Kay
, Diane Morgan
, Adjoa Andoh
, Lenny Henry
, Muzz Khan

Runtime

79 minutes

Writers

Mark Burton

Producers

Claire Jennings

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Vengeance Most Fowl hits Netflix on January 1, 2025.
Watch on Netflix