Flushed Away

This article is about the film. For the video game based on the film, see Flushed Away (video game).

Flushed Away
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Screenplay by
Story by
Produced by
Starring
Edited by
Music byHarry Gregson-Williams
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 22 October 2006 (2006-10-22) (Tokyo)
  • 3 November 2006 (2006-11-03) (United States)
  • 1 December 2006 (2006-12-01) (United Kingdom)
Running time
85 minutes[2]
Countries
  • United States[2]
  • United Kingdom[2]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$149 million[3]
Box office$178.3 million[3]

Flushed Away is a 2006 animated adventure comedy film directed by Sam Fell and David Bowers (in their feature directorial debuts), produced by Cecil Kramer, David Sproxton, and Peter Lord, and written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and Will Davies.[2] It was the third and final DreamWorks Animation film co-produced with Aardman Features following Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and was the first Aardman project mostly made in CGI animation as opposed to starting with their usual stop-motion[4] – this was because using water on plasticine models could damage them, and it was complex to render the effect in another way. The film stars the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Shane Richie, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis and Jean Reno. In the film, a pampered fancy rat named Roddy St. James (Jackman) is flushed down the toilet in his Kensington apartment by a sewer rat named Sid (Richie), and befriends a scavenger named Rita Malone (Winslet) in order to get back home while evading a sinister toad (McKellen) and his hench-rats (Nighy and Serkis).

The idea about rats that fall in love in sewers was created by animator Fell during the production of Chicken Run. In 2001, Fell developed the concept into a story before pitching it to DreamWorks. The project was first announced in July 2002, followed with comic writing duo Clement and La Frenais contracted to write the script, which had the working title Ratropolis. In 2003, Bowers joined in to direct the film with Fell.

The film's world premiere was held at the Toho Cinemas Theatre in Roppongi Hills during the Tokyo International Film Festival on October 22, 2006,[5] followed by the wide release in United States by Paramount Pictures on 3 November 2006, and in the United Kingdom by UIP on 1 December. Despite receiving positive reviews from critics, Flushed Away underperformed at the box office, grossing over $178 million worldwide against its production budget of $149 million and prompting Aardman to end its partnership deal with DreamWorks with the estimated loss of $109 million after write-down. The film received nominations for the BAFTA Award and Critics' Choice Award for Best Animated Feature. It received a further eight nominations at the 34th Annie Awards, winning a leading five, including Writing in a Feature Production and, for McKellen, Voice Acting in a Feature Production.

  1. ^ a b c "Flushed Away (2006)". The Numbers. Archived from the original on 27 February 2023. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Flushed Away". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d "Flushed Away". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 12 March 2012. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference TWPSavesClay was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Flushed Away". Tokyo International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 23 October 2006. Retrieved 11 August 2023.