Former Saturday Night Live cast members Jason Sudekis, Bill Hader, and Maya Rudolph, current SNL cast member Kate McKinnon, as well as Peter Dinklage and Josh Gad will all lend their voices to Angry Birds. The film is based on the massively popular video game franchise about a flock of birds fighting an army of pigs. The film will be directed by Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly and written by Jon Vitti. Sudekis, Gad, and Dinklage are confirmed as portraying heroic birds while Hader will be a villainous pig.
Angry Birds the video game was first released for Apple iOS in 2009. Players use a slingshot to launch flightless birds at a structure of pigs with the goal of destroying as many pigs as possible. Within a year the success of the game resulted in ports for other smart phones as well as video game consoles and PCs. In addition to sequels the franchise has also seen spinoffs inspired by various films and franchises including Star Wars and Transformers. Within the past five years Angry Birds has been downloaded over 2 billion times across all of its releases. Unlike the many of the growing number video game films currently in development, Angry Birds comes from a younger franchise with a massive fan base beyond the typical gaming audience. It will also be an animated film likely intended for a younger audience than the PG-13 action film we are sure to see from World of Warcraft or Uncharted.
The game’s development studio, Rovio Entertainment, will oversee production of the film and Sony will distribute. Angry Birds will release in the United States on July 1, 2016.
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