If you thought it was cute/funny/dumb that Rovio was working so hard to translate their mobile video game phenomenon into a hit animated film, prepare to amplify those feelings exponentially. Rovio has made what the industry calls a “not fuckin’ around move” and hired the architect of Marvel’s contemporary movie empire to engineer a new media shingle centered around a cellphone video game that’s been downloaded a quarter of a billion times. Angry Birds –which I still enjoy on a daily, toliet-oriented basis– has been scratching the surface of its potential with home games and toys, but Rovio feels the franchise could be the center of a whole new media monolith generating games, toys, feature films, and more from a new family entertainment thinktank that would merge the popularity of Pixar with the scale of Marvel.
David Maisel is the aforementioned corporate deal-maker, and he’s responsible for the development of Marvel into its own movie studio, and the wider company’s acquisition by Disney. That series of events represents one of the largest scale one-two-punches in the entertainment industry’s history, and his name is still at the top of every major Marvel Studios film. Whether or not he’s being brought on to develop a similar chain of events for Rovio remains to be seen, but in the meantime Rovio is actively gearing up for their Angry Birds feature film, purchasing animation 
studios and courting new investment capital left and right. The plan is to proceed the feature with short films, and then to independently produce the full-length film with an eye towards partnering with a major distributor down the road. Naturally the original product, which exists perpetually alongside the genitals of nearly every smartphone owner on the planet, will be aggressively leveraged to push the other endeavors. Captive audiences and all…
Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio, has never been subtle or restrained about describing his vision for his company, and comparisons to Pixar, Marvel, and even Aardman Animation fly fast and loose with him. It sounds a bit melodramatic, but if the guy really wants to be at the center of something like that then I’m all for it. There’s nothing wrong with taking the Angry Birds aesthetic and making a film out of it, or making your company the center for more properties that melt the game/film line. If Hed really wants to accomplish this though, he needs to make one specific goal paramount: acquiring writers who give a shit about story and character. From the very start Rovio will have to make their number one priority the nurturing of a collective of talented writers and artists with their hearts on their sleeves and solid structure on their brains. You need a new generation of Birds, Lasseters, and Stantons at the center of this to make something truly special.
Priorities Mr. Hed. Priorities. It’s a hard dynamic to replicate, but it has to be the goal.
So are we witnessing the birth of a new major force in the creative animation game, or a whole bunch of hot air? Tell me what you think on twitter @rennbrown, on the message board, or in the comments below.
Source | Variety
8 comments
Sorry, but I just don’t see how a simple game involving catapulting small birds to destroy buildings and pigs will ever become a feature film. Well, maybe they can try to become the next Shrek, only instead of ogres they have birds.
Ha! Ha! HAAAAAAA! HAAAAAAAAHAHHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAH! HA! HArgh! Har-Dee-Har-har! An empire?! Really?
You realize that there’s a “Battleship” film coming out next year, right?
Yeah, personally, the “cinematics” between levels is probably about as compelling as the film would be. I’d much rather see the talent they spoke of to make a good story out if it, just use they’re creativity to make an original story that we could support and care about, rather than trying to make angry birds an equal to pokemon in the “sell-useless-crap-to-kids” field.
I don’t care for the game, but a kids’ movie featuring birds blowing the shit out of themselves to destroy an army of pigs? That’s worth Netflix’ing, just for curiosity alone.
Just the idea of an ANGRY BIRDS movie makes me ill. I will never ever play angry birds in my life, just like I will never play Farmville or World of Warcraft or any game that causes people to go slack jawed and ignore the outside “real” world for hours and hours on end.
FINALLY! A movie designed to be viewed on my iphone while crapping.
So… this would be a movie about suicide bombers, right?
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