I can't get my head around Wallace & Gromit creators' surprising new project

Bristolian stop-motion studio Aardman is a cornerstone of British culture, but it's just announced its next big project after this year's Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, and I'm struggling to get my head around it.

In an announcement on Wednesday, December 11, Aardman announced that it's working with the Pokémon company to create a "special project" that will come out in 2027. No word on what that project is, but my money is on it being either a movie or a TV show.

Pokémon, best known for its series of video games that are as popular among adults as they are among children, is no stranger to animation. Many people grew up on its anime TV series and only last year Netflix released a stop-motion series called Pokémon Concierge. That's not the surprising part of this news, and it's the Aardman involvement that comes out of left field.

Aardman is the creator of Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Chicken Run, and I'm sure most people will agree that they create decidedly British stories.

That's particularly true for the former franchise, which I'd say is what Aardman is still best known for; while the cheese-loving inventor and his expressive canine may have global appeal, it's hard to disagree that they're as much British icons as Mr. Bean or Paddington Bear (yes, I know that the latter is technically Peruvian, but the character was created in the UK). The studio's big franchises depict an idealized pastoral and suburban version of the UK from the 20th century that you don't see on screen much, clearly a love letter (or commentary on, in some cases) of the landscape that their creators grew up in.

I'm very curious, then, to see how this quintessentially British company handles a franchise that's decidedly un-British (The Pokémon Company is from Japan). And while I think it's a shame that Aardman is focusing on franchises other than its beloved own ones, a brief trip through the company's filmography reveals that it's been doing it for a while.

Recently, Aardman released a Star Wars short film for Disney Plus and it also announced in October that it's creating a TV series based on Pingu (a franchise which is Swiss), and it worked on a DC series all the way back in 2011. So it has its fingers in many pies. However, in the feature film world, it's never yet worked on a project based on an existing franchise that it didn't also create.

Pokémon has made dalliances with the UK before, with its 2019 games Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield set in a land inspired by the British Isles. However, from my experience with the games, they best resemble Britain as seen through the eyes of someone whose only experience is through Google Image searches (not least because two of the three starter companions you can choose from are a monkey and a lizard, not exactly British creatures...).

Aardman fans have already been waiting with bated breath to see what the studio does after Vengeance Most Fowl; after the factory which produces Aardman's clay shut down in 2023. Some reports suggested that Aardman is running out of clay, though the studio itself denied that and stated that it's trying to find "new stocks to continue to make our iconic productions". Some fans have been worried that this could change the look, and therefore the charm, of Aardman's next projects.

I can't quite get skeptical about Aardman's Pokémon project this many years in advance — I'll happily be proven wrong about the odd fit — but it'll probably take me these three years just to get my head around it!