If you're like me and you grew up on Wallace & Gromit, this news will shock you to the core.
The studio that creates the clay used for the stop motion animation of Aardman Studios has shut down.
They only have enough clay to make the next Wallace & Gromit movie!
How... how do you even run out of clay?
Ever since its founding in the early 1970s, Aardman has moulded its characters from Lewis Newplast - a modelling material named after one Mr Lewis, an art teacher from Chislehurst who concocted the stuff in his garden shed.
This Plasticine-like substance is an animator's dream: it's easy to mould, yet keeps its shape under hot studio lights. But in March this year, the only factory that made it, on the outskirts of Torquay, shut up shop. When its closure was announced, Aardman bought up every last block of Lewis Newplast that remained in the warehouse - enough for just one more film: the new Wallace & Gromit, coming in 2024.
Basically, this particular clay is the cream of the crop! Untouchable stuff. So when this studio shut down, that was it.
They can find another clay to mold the characters out of, but it won't be the same.
This news comes as a Chicken Run sequel is being released and a new Wallace & Gromit movie is being created.
But we'll never see this exact modeling clay again.
Things just won't be the same!!
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