The creators of the Shaun The Sheep movie are hoping to make a sequel – although it could take a while.

Shaun first appeared in Wallace And Gromit short A Close Shave, before getting his own spin-off TV series.

His first movie – in which Shaun gets up to more mischief – is in cinemas now and took three years to make.

Nick Park Shaun The Sheep
Nick Park at the Shaun The Sheep premiere (Grant Pollard/Invision)

“We have to think about a sequel, just in case,” said Richard Starzak, who along with Mark Burton, wrote and directed the Aardman Studios movie.

“Hopefully there will be one.”

He said that the directors had to resist the temptation to add just a little dialogue – apart from 1,589 “baas” – to the Shaun The Sheep film.

Shaun The Sheep
Shaun The Sheep is a popular character (Yui Mok/PA)

There is no spoken language in the film, just like the hugely successful TV series.

Asked whether they were ever tempted to cheat, Richard said: “All the time. All the time, I’d think, ‘I just want it to say…’.”

Justin Fletcher Shaun The Sheep
Justin Fletcher ‘voices’ Shaun in the film (Grant Pollard/Invision)

But Mark added: “What’s interesting to us is, there’s a maxim that when you watch a well-known film, you could watch it without the sound on and still get the story.

“We tried to create a really emotional big story, with a beginning, middle and end. There have only been a few places where we’ve thought, ‘Ooh, it would be lovely to cheat here’. It’s been a tough challenge at times, but it’s been really interesting.”