DreamWorks Animation SKG has announced their next film collaboration with Aardman, a new comedy entitled Crood Awakening. The announcement was made during a tribute to Aardman at the Cannes Film Festival, by DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, together with Aardman co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton. "Crood Awakening" will mark DreamWorks' fourth film collaboration with Aardman, following 2000's "Chicken Run," this year's Wallace & Gromit -- The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Flushed Away, which is planned for release in 2006.

Crood Awakening is being co-written by British comedy icon John Cleese, who earned an Academy Award® nomination for his screenplay for A Fish Called Wanda and is a co-creator and original member of the legendary Monty Python's Flying Circus. Co-writing the screenplay with Cleese is Kirk DeMicco, who previously wrote the family film Racing Stripes and the animated adventure Quest for Camelot.

Set in the Stone Age, Crood Awakening is a comedy about a big man in a small village called Crood. His position as Leader of the Hunt is threatened by the arrival of a prehistoric genius who comes up with revolutionary new inventions ... like fire.