Aardman celebrated its half-century at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on Sunday, using a masterclass to look back at its roots and forward to a busy slate of new projects. The studio’s co-founders and key creative figures outlined several upcoming releases and collaborations that signal a renewed push into preschool programming, feature-length stop-motion and global franchise work.
The panel included co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton, longtime director Nick Park and Executive Creative Director Sarah Cox, who framed the announcements around Aardman’s continuing relevance in a competitive, franchise-driven market.
New preschool spin-off — and a fresh perspective on a familiar world
Leading the news was a BBC-commissioned preschool series expanding the Mossy Bottom universe. Let’s Go Timmy! will consist of 30 episodes of five minutes each and follows Bitzer the sheepdog as he attempts to shepherd Timmy and two friends — Yabba and Apricot — to Mossy Bottom School each morning, despite comic detours along the way. The show is directed by Merlin Crossingham and Daniel Bins and produced by Stephanie Miller, with BBC commissioning executive Lucy Pryke attached.
Cox described the project as an opportunity to explore Bitzer in a new, more comedic role while maintaining links to the Shaun the Sheep world. For parents, she said, the premise is intentionally familiar: the daily scramble to get children to school on time becomes the engine for short, child-friendly stories.
Shaun the Sheep goes bigger — theatrical release set
The studio also confirmed that the third Shaun the Sheep feature, Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom, will open in cinemas globally from mid-September. Cox said the production was the studio’s most intensive shoot to date — completed under tight timelines — and praised the crew’s effort on what she called an unusually fast and large-scale stop-motion shoot.
New literary adaptation in development
Aardman revealed another original feature in development adapted from Oliver Jeffers’ picture book material. Titled The Almost (Untold) Story Of Danger Delilah, the film reworks characters from Jeffers’ alphabet stories into a new narrative about a girl who discovers her world is fading and realizes she must take control of her own story. Peter Lord has written the script and, after a final round of development, the team plans to begin pitching the project.
“We’re coming to the end of development,” Cox said, noting collaboration with Jeffers and an Irish illustrator-writer on the project’s visual approach. The creative team includes Åsa Lukander and senior development lead James Higginson, who helped expand the source material into a full-length tale.
Franchise crossover: Aardman meets Pokémon
In a surprise segment, Phil Rynda from The Pokémon Company International joined Cox to show unseen footage from the previously announced joint series Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu. Rynda said the series is set in the Galar region — the Poké-world analogue of the UK — and is notable for being told from the Pokémon perspective through Aardman’s stop-motion-inflected storytelling.
He described the series as a comedy-adventure that reinterprets the franchise’s world through Aardman’s distinct voice, adding that the collaboration has been a creative highlight for both teams.
- Let’s Go Timmy! — 30 x 5-minute preschool episodes, BBC-commissioned, directed by Merlin Crossingham and Daniel Bins.
- Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom — third feature, global theatrical release mid-September; production completed on an accelerated schedule.
- The Almost (Untold) Story Of Danger Delilah — adaptation from Oliver Jeffers’ work; script by Peter Lord; development wrapping, ready to pitch.
- Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu — Aardman-Pokémon co-production set in the Galar region; new footage revealed at Annecy.
These announcements underline two clear priorities for Aardman: broadening the appeal of its existing IP into younger demographics and partnering with global brands to reach new audiences. The move into shorter-form preschool content reflects an industry trend—established characters are being repurposed for platforms and viewing habits dominated by short, repeatable content.
Founders and early history — how Aardman scaled up
The masterclass also revisited the company’s origins. Lord and Sproxton said they first connected at school and gradually moved from amateur animations to professional work in their late teens, a period that culminated in an early BBC screening and the adoption of the Aardman name. The studio’s clay puppet Morph and later stop-motion shorts helped cement its reputation.
They credited Channel 4 with creating space in the 1980s for animation aimed at adult audiences, a shift that allowed the studio to experiment beyond children’s programming. That spirit of risk-taking set the stage for later successes, including Nick Park’s student film, which led to a collaboration and ultimately to Park becoming a central creative force at Aardman.
“Nick arrived with a clear and confident voice,” Lord said, recalling the early collaboration that produced the Wallace & Gromit films. The partnership between inventive directors and a craft-skilled studio has been the cornerstone of Aardman’s longevity.
From a practical standpoint, the slate unveiled at Annecy signals that the studio is betting on a mix of theatrical releases and short-form series to sustain growth. For viewers, that means more ways to encounter Aardman’s distinctive stop-motion worlds — whether in cinemas, on broadcast channels or in short online episodes for preschool audiences.
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Hello, I’m Declan. I share my film reviews and discoveries with you to enrich your moviegoing experience.