Deadline’s “Read the Screenplay” series continues to highlight the scripts of this award season’s top movies, and this time it focuses on Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Netflix’s stop-motion animated movie that marks the return of the beloved duo after a 20-year break.
The screenplay for this film was written by Nick Park and Mark Burton, with Park and Merlin Crossingham co-directing. The film premiered at AFI Fest in the fall, aired on BBC on Christmas Day, and made its Netflix debut on January 3.
The movie follows the success of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), which earned $192 million globally. In Vengeance Most Fowl, Wallace invents a new “smart” gnome, named Norbit, that quickly becomes a local hit. But when news about the gnome reaches Wallace’s old enemy, Feathers McGraw, he uses his prison connections to hack the gnome’s programming, turning it into a villain. This causes chaos in the town, and Wallace is wrongly blamed for the disappearance of people’s belongings. As always, Gromit steps in to clear Wallace’s name and save the day.
Park reveals that the idea for this film began after the success of Curse of the Were-Rabbit. He explains that gnomes have always been part of the Wallace & Gromit world, and the team started thinking about the possibility of Wallace inventing a smart gnome to help Gromit. The concept grew over time, and eventually, the story developed into a full-length movie instead of just another half-hour special.
One key part of the film’s story is the return of Feathers McGraw, one of the most popular villains from the Wallace & Gromit series. Park shares that they originally planned a story about the smart gnomes causing trouble, but they needed a stronger motivation for the gnomes’ actions. The idea to bring back Feathers McGraw came as a solution to this problem. Fans had been asking about the return of Feathers for years, and this film presented the perfect opportunity to bring the character back into the story.
With the return of the iconic characters, Vengeance Most Fowl promises to deliver a fun and exciting adventure that fans of all ages will enjoy.
