Shaun the Sheep Directors Talk Acclaimed Movie The Beast of Mossy Bottom | Interview
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom co-directors Steve Cox and Matthew Walker spoke with ComingSoon about the delightful new Aardman movie. The duo discussed tackling kid-friendly horror, its similarities and differences to Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and much more. Being distributed by GKIDS, the film is out in theaters on September 18, 2026.
“Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom sees the residents of Mossy Bottom Farm looking forward to Halloween – until the clumsy Farmer trashes the Flock’s beloved pumpkin patch! When Shaun turns mad scientist to fix the problem, things rapidly spiral out of control… With The Farmer missing and a wild beast roaming the woods of Mossingham, all the ingredients are in place for a monstrously fun family adventure,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Steve, Aardman famously did The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which probably has the most in common thematically with The Beast of Mossy Bottom. There are some similarities here, with humans becoming very hairy being a large part of the film. How was it making sure you were doing something new and different, but still kind of itching that Aardman sweet spot?
Steve Cox: Yeah, it’s good you pointed that out. We were very aware in the early stages of development that it had the potential to be very Were-Rabbit-like. So we did everything we could to try and steer it in a different direction.
One of the things we did was to make sure we revealed that the Farmer is the monster early on—spoiler alert—but that doesn’t happen in Were-Rabbit. So we wanted to get that kind of out of the way and have it more about the adventure of what happens to the Farmer once he becomes the monster and how Shaun’s going to transform him back, rather than a mystery. So it was less of a mystery and a bit more of a fast-paced action-type film.
Matthew Walker: Yeah, tonally, Were-Rabbit was much more gothic and a bit darker, whereas we drew more upon sort of ’80s adventure movies in terms of the tonal feel of our film.
Matthew, you’d done TV work within the Shaun the Sheep universe. What was the biggest adjustment from doing something bigger in scale and feature-length compared to the prior work you’ve done?
Walker: Yeah, it was a big step up. It was really exciting to be able to get to direct this feature. But I think that from the beginning, it was the different mindset in terms of the storytelling.
Obviously, working in television, you’re used to thinking in standalone chunks, like six-minute episodes. On the series I did called Lloyd of the Flies, that was 10-minute episodes. So kind of coming from that background of children’s animation.
But then on the feature film, having to think much bigger and a longer story was really great. I’ve always wanted to work in a longer format, and so it’s great to have that opportunity.
Then working with Mark and Giles, the writers, Steve and I worked really closely with them developing the story. Then going into production, I think that was a big learning curve and a big challenge. But I really loved that different way of thinking about the film and making sure I always had that bigger picture in my head.
Especially when Steve and I, once we were in production, had to split the film into different sequences. So we’re kind of working separately, briefing different animators, but making sure that we’re still on the same page and what we’re doing still fits together in the larger framework of the film.
So it’s really about telling those emotional stories of the characters on a longer scale. It’s not just about the comedy, it’s about telling an emotional story for the characters and making sure that develops through the film and pays off in a good way.
Steve, like Matthew just talked about, you guys have to tell a story on a bigger scale. In this film, a lot of the cast are sheep. They say a few things and make noises, but they’re not having full conversations. That’s not as hard when you’re doing a short, to keep people interested and engaged for a while without a ton of dialogue, but I imagine it’s a lot trickier with a film. How did you guys approach that element of it and just making sure people were still engaged despite there not being constant chatter and dialogue?
Cox: That’s a good question. Yeah, the emotional story is key to that. So hooking the audience in in the early stages and getting them on board. What’s going to happen? Shaun’s pumpkins have been destroyed. How is he going to react to this? We want him to succeed. Is the Farmer going to get to have a relationship with the vet?
So those emotional elements, once you’ve hooked somebody on them, an audience wants to know what’s going to happen at that point. Then having no dialogue almost becomes our friend because once you’ve hooked your audience in, the audience needs to stay looking at the screen. They need to stay watching the great performances from our animators and understand what’s happening between these characters.
Because they’re watching the screen, they’re engaging and they’re not looking at their phones or being distracted by anything else. They can get drawn into the story.
Providing that we’ve designed the story well enough and our animators, who we treat as our Hollywood actors, are delivering great performances, which they are, we know that there’s a depth of story there which will draw you in and keep your interest.
Matthew, you mentioned earlier that this kind of draws from the ’80s adventure movies, and I can definitely feel that. These are family films first and foremost, but stuff like this and Were-Rabbit are also fun introductions to horror elements for a lot of kids, where they kind of get to dip their toes into something a little more spooky than they might usually watch. How is it finding that right balance for something like this, where you do have those horror overtones but never get too scary with it?
Walker: Yeah, we’re really conscious of that when making the film, about finding that balance for the scares, because when we started on the film and knew it was going to be a Halloween film, immediately we had so many ideas drawing on all the horror films we loved and the different horror tropes. But we knew we couldn’t make it too scary because obviously the audience for Shaun starts very young.
So we had certain tropes that we really, really wanted to try and put into the film. A lot of it came naturally from the story as it developed. But we ended up with, for example, the home invasion sequence when the monster comes to the farmhouse. Then later, we have the monster unleashed in the town square. Then at the end, the big lightning storm around the windmill and the mob.
So there are these big tropes that we wanted to play with. But we also wanted to make sure we were kind of undercutting it with comedy and finding the comedy version of it rather than the scary version.
But we also wanted a few jump scares and a little bit of tension. Just the right level that even the younger kids could enjoy. Like you say, it is a nice way to introduce a younger audience to those tropes of the genre.
I remember watching films as a kid that would reference films that I’d never seen. At the time, I didn’t realize there were references, but I could still enjoy whatever the gag was or the story was. I later realized when rewatching the film at an older age, I’d realize, “Oh, that was referencing such-and-such a film.”
So I’m hoping we can do that with this film, where the young kids watching this film won’t have any idea what Psycho is, but hopefully still enjoy the gag. But when they’re old enough to watch Psycho and they discover that film, they’ll have a new appreciation of that gag in this film because they realize, “Oh, that was a Psycho reference.” That’s been a lot of fun.
Yeah, that’s so cool. I thought you guys found a really lovely balance to that.
Steve, I feel like the reason why Aardman films and series are so beloved is because of the little touches and all the handcrafted quality that really makes it go beyond just the British wit and all the charming characters. Can you speak to your team’s philosophy? Because it seems like every scene has little touches that make it feel special. How do you guys kind of punch up every moment? Because it just seems like so much thought goes into everything.
Steve Cox: It does. Yeah, it really does. From the very first stages of writing the script, we develop that and we try and improve on it in the writers’ room.
We bounce jokes backwards and forwards between each other, and we’re trying to outdo each other. It’s a real fun room to be in because we’re laughing all day long and coming up with these silly ideas. So from that very early stage, we’ve got these kinds of details that go in.
But then later on in the production of the film, it continues. The animators put in little nuances, little bits of real funny character animation that wasn’t necessarily in the script. They really embody the characters and bring that wit in through the characters.
Then also, the art department, for example, might add in a little background joke. It’s all because the crew love what they do. Everybody here at Aardman really wants to put in 110 percent and just kind of keep tweaking and improving on the last film that we made.
So yeah, it’s kind of an inbuilt desire to just do better and enjoy what we do.
Matthew Walker: Yeah, it was a very collaborative production. We always wanted to allow those new ideas from the animators and the art department throughout the film.
Matthew, we’re seeing a lot of cool stop-motion lately. Aardman, we’re seeing that with Laika and elsewhere. Can you speak to just that medium’s staying power and why you fell in love with it and why audiences continue to be drawn to it so much?
Walker: Stop-motion has a really sort of tactile nature. We feel like it’s very tangible. You really feel like you want to just reach out and touch the puppets.
I remember as a kid watching Wallace & Gromit and other stop-motion. I loved making models, and I’d make models based on those characters. I think stop-motion has never gone away, but I wonder if it is kind of having a bit of a resurgence because I think there’s a feeling that it’s not just in stop-motion, but the way digital media and streaming have been so dominant in filmmaking and different media, things have become so polished.
I think there is a desire to step back a bit and still have that sort of handmade, tactile nature to things. That’s the philosophy of all the Aardman films. You want to be able to see the craft.
We don’t mind if you can see the thumbprints. That’s part of the appeal. I think it’s similar in recent CG films like Spider-Verse and films that have come since then, where they’ve added that layer of 2D and that sketchiness. I think that comes from that desire to not always be so polished. Actually, it’s nice to see the pencil lines.
Steve, you were an animator on the first Shaun the Sheep movie. Does this feel like a particularly full-circle moment for you that now you’ve directed one? That’s a pretty incredible moment.
Cox: It’s brilliant. Yeah, I really do feel privileged because now I’ve animated and directed on Shaun. I’ve directed on a feature and a half-hour and a series as well. So I’m very, very used to Shaun the Sheep. I do love working with him, and I loved working as an animator on that first film.
There’s a particular scene in it where it’s a very emotional scene for Shaun. He’s underneath the bridge and he’s having a real dark night of the soul moment. In animating that sequence, I knew what you could get from the puppet. I knew the performance was possible.
So when it came to directing, I was able to point to that to other animators and say, “Look, this character, even though his face is solid and his eyeballs are solid and he’s got no eyebrows and he’s got nothing to emote with, even though he’s got none of those things, he can still—you just drop his shoulders and you make him feel small and sad, and you can get some real, real proper emotion from these characters.”
So that was great to have that. To come to a point where I’m directing a film is brilliant.
Thanks to Steve Cox and Matthew Walker for taking the time to talk about Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom.
Source: Comingsoon.net