Wallace and Gromit creator goes prehistoric with ‘Early Man’

The kooky caveman characters that come to life in “Early Man ‘’ have been kicking around in Nick Park’s imagination for decades.

Long before he created Wallace and Gromit, Park was taken with Ray Harryhousen’s animated dinosaurs in the 1966 Raquel Welch movie “One Million Years B.C.’’

“I just couldn’t believe real dinosaurs moving around with people,’’ Park said, recalling the film he saw as an 11-year-old that would inspire his love of animation. “So I guess that sort of thing has been in the back of my mind for many years.’’

“Early Man’’ translates Park’s vision into an epic claymation adventure about a tribe of colourful cave people who stake the future of their homeland on a soccer showdown, despite not knowing how to play. An ambitious young caveman, Dug, and his loyal pet warthog, Hognob, believe the plucky tribe can prevail.

“I’ve never seen a prehistoric underdog sports movie before,’’ Park mused.

U.K.-based Aardman Studios tapped its largest production team yet — with nearly 40 animators and sets working at once — to make “Early Man,’’ which uses stop-motion animation techniques essentially unchanged since Harryhousen’s day.

“We’ve used some of the most advanced filmmaking techniques in post-production, together with stop-motion, which is as old as cinema itself,’’ said animation director Merlin Crossingham.