DREAMWORKS - G'BYE, GROMIT!

DreamWorks Animation has ended its partnership with Britain's Aardman Animation after taking enormous losses on Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which won the Oscar for best animated film of 2005, and last year's Flushed Away. The latter film reportedly cost DreamWorks $142.9 million but took in only about $50 million at the box office. In a statement DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said, "While I will always be a fan and an admirer of Aardman's work, our different business goals no longer support each other." Aardman spokesman Arthur Sheriff told the London Times that the company wanted to return to making "claymation" films. (It used computer animation for Flushed Away.) He added: "We always knew that America would be a hard task for us -- we're a very English company. ... We think part of our strength is our English sense of humor and we want to continue with that."

31/01/2007