To mass critical acclaim and outstanding box office results, Wallace and Gromit's first feature film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit was released by DreamWorks in October 2005. The film topped the box office charts in both the US and UK and garnered many prestigious international awards including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and a BAFTA for Best British Film.

As the success of Curse of the Were-Rabbit reverberated around the world a fire swept through a storage warehouse containing models, props and many other treasures created by the animators and designers at Aardman.