Aardman’s ‘Shaun the Sheep Movie’ Gets U.S. Release Date
Aardman Animation’s Shaun the Sheep Movie, directed by Mark Burton and Richard Starzak, finally has a U.S. release date: August 7, 2015. The announcement was made on the Twitter account of its American distributor Lionsgate:
Greetings America! Get ready to meet Shaun the Sheep – The global phenomenon movie is coming to theaters August 7! pic.twitter.com/1J0MQHF2W0
— Lionsgate Movies (@lionsgatemovies) April 24, 2015
The British stop-motion movie is based on the Shaun the Sheep TV series, which itself is a spinoff of the Wallace & Gromit franchise. Since the film’s release in February, it has grossed $54 million internationally.
Shaun the Sheep Movie will be released during a relatively quiet period for animated features. Universal’s The Minions is scheduled to be released in the United States nearly a month earlier, on July 10. The film that will be impacted most is the Argentinean CG film Underdogs, which will hit theaters one week later on August 14th. The distributor of Underdogs, the Weinstein Company, has repeatedly delayed its release; it was originally slated to arrive in U.S. theaters in August 2014.
August is generally not considered a prime window for major animated releases. Since 2009, only two animated movies have been released in one thousand-plus theaters during the month of August: Laika’s ParaNorman in 2012 and Disney’s Planes in 2013.