News: Gillian Anderson

The former X-Files star has been turning up in some very unexpected places of late – who, after all, would have expected Scully to appear in a relatively low-budget political biopic like this week’s The Last King of Scotland, or a big BBC costume drama series like last year’s Bleak House adaptation? It seems her move to the UK has done her artistic credibility some good – though will it be maintained with her upcoming projects?

Anderson currently has two films in the pipeline, both British. First, due in April in the UK, Straightheads revolves around a middle-class couple who, after being attacked by a vicious gang, decide to have their own bit of violent fun – if you want to find out more, check out the film’s rather fun blog. After that, she’ll be cropping up alongside the very British likes of Brenda Blethyn, Jane Horrocks and John Hurt in the comic tale of blackmail in a seaside town that is No One Gets Off In This Town. Sounds decidedly Carry On – which may or may not be a good thing…

News: Aardman Animations

Aardman and US studio DreamWorks have parted company – pretty much as soon as their collaborative effort, this week’s Flushed Away, was released in America earlier this month. By all accounts, having invested $142.9 million in Flushed Away, only to see the film make $39 million in its first two weeks at US multiplexes, the American producers of the smash-hit Shrek flicks were less than impressed with the more modest showing of their Anglo-American effort.

Dreamworks’ decision to ditch their British partners breaks a five-film deal the two studios had previously agreed, and puts the future of planned projects like Crood Awakenings, a John Cleese-scripted comedy set in prehistoric times and originally set for release in 2008, into doubt.

The current status of Aardman’s other big feature-length project, Tortoise vs. Hare (based on a script by the creators of the Mike Bassett football manager character) also remains unclear. It was originally scheduled for release way back in 2003, and set to star the vocal talents of Bob Hoskins, Brenda Blethyn and Lee Evans, before being put on indefinite hold as long ago as summer 2001, before being revived after the Dreamworks team-up for a 2007 release.

Following the fire at the Brisol-based Aardman’s studios soon after the release of last year’s Wallace & Grommit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, anyone would think that the release of a feature-length Aardman movie has attracted some kind of curse.

Sill, Aardman still seems to be doing OK on the back of last years Oscar-winning Wallace & Grommit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – which, Dreamworks executives should note, also took a few weeks to really build momentum, but ended up pulling in $192.4 million worldwide… In any case, Aardman have landed at least one lucrative and high-profile project in the US to make up for the Dreamworks fallout: they have produced US superstore chain Wal-Mart’s Christmas advertising blitz, featuring a new double-act, renegade elves Wally and Marty.