Kate Winslet has been signed up to star as the voice of Aardman Animations' latest film Flushed Away.

The actress will play opposite Hugh Jackman in the animated film about sewer rats.

Production on the movie will take place in Los Angeles and not at its Bristol headquarters because of the sheer scale of the CGI production.

Aardman's previous successes have included Chicken Run and the Wallace and Gromit series reports BBC online.

Director Nick Park is currently working on a feature-length Wallace and Gromit movie, which should be completed in April. Park won two Oscars for the short films about the odd couple, and another for his Creature Comforts short film.

Flushed Away, which is set for release in 2006, features Rita the rat who teams up with a posh rat in the sewer city of Ratropolis.

Other actors lending their voices to the film include Sir Ian McKellen, Bill Nighy and Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings fame.

The film will be produced at the Dreamworks studio, where such films as Shark Tale and Shrek were made.

"We simply are not scaled up for a full CGI feature," Aardman co-founder David Sproxton told Screen Daily.

The majority of Aardman productions have used clay models for characters and sets but the complexity of Flushed Away means CGI is a more suitable method.

Source: Press Release