𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

By the mid-1990s, Wallace and Gromit had made Aardman one of the most talked-about names in animation.

That success led to an unlikely meeting with Steven Spielberg.

At dinner with Spielberg and DreamWorks chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, they pitched what became Chicken Run.

“We want to do The Great Escape,” Lord told Spielberg.

“But with chickens.”

“I had always been a fan of Aardman,” Katzenberg said. “And I had this secret ambition that someday there would be a way to work together.”

Park remembered Spielberg’s response.

“Spielberg said, ‘The Great Escape is one of my favourite films, and I have 300 chickens on my ranch!’ So it went very well.”

No-one had ever made a 90-minute stop-motion feature from modelling clay. The budget was more than £20m, and Aardman insisted every frame would be shot in Bristol.

The gamble paid off. Chicken Run took more than $220m (£165m) worldwide and remains the highest-grossing stop-motion film ever made.