Wallace & Gromit makers reel in Sony Pictures deal

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-04-03 08:29

LONDON - Aardman Features, the UK makers of "Wallace & Gromit" and "Chicken Run" films, is finalizing a deal with Sony Pictures that gets it back into the U.S. market three months after its partnership with the Dreamworks studio ended.

Sony Pictures Entertainment said on Monday it was in final negotiations for a three-year, first-look deal with Aardman Features, the feature film division of Aardman Animations Ltd.

Sony Pictures is a unit of Japanese electronics maker Sony Corp.. The Sony film studio's hits include the James Bond blockbuster "Casino Royale," the "Spider-Man" movies and "The Da Vinci Code."

Financial terms for the Sony/Aardman partnership, which just requires legal sign-off, were not disclosed.

"There is an expectation that they will make a movie every year to 18 months," Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Lynton told Reuters.

"We are paying them a certain sum of money every year to help them cover their overheads and development," he said by telephone from Los Angeles.

Once a picture gets the green light, Sony will also fund production, marketing and promotion.

Three months ago, Aardman and Dreamworks Animation SKG ended the seven-year partnership that led to three feature films, saying their ambitions had moved apart.

The split came after their stop-motion movie collaborations "Flushed Away" and "Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit" received critical acclaim but didn't generate as much box office takings as had been anticipated.

"Wallace" follows the adventures of an intrepid, cheese-loving inventor and his canine sidekick and landed Aardman's Nick Park and his co-director Steve Box an Oscar last year for best animated feature film. Park has won three other Oscars for his short animated films.

Lynton said Aardman was keen to produce not only stop-motion, but also computer-generated movie projects.

Aardman is based in Bristol, southwest England.

"It is a completely different voice; it comes from a part of the world that has absolutely nothing to do with Hollywood," said Lynton.

He said the deal with Aardman sat well with Sony Picture's focus on films both in and outside the U.S., adding that the UK company would have a relatively high degree of artistic freedom.

"The market right now is an interesting place because despite everybody saying Hollywood is only going for the big blockbuster, the truth is there is probably more variety going on and greater audience acceptance of that variety than has existed in the last 10 or 15 years. Aardman fits very well into that mix," Lynton said.