It would be hard to find someone who owns a cell phone that hasn’t heard of the Angry Birds game. Since its inception the instant-hit mobile game has been downloaded over 3.3. billion times, which of course makes it a perfect candidate for a Hollywood adaptation. The Angry Birds Movie allows for the game’s colorful characters to speak for the first time, granting greater depth of exploration in its world.
Basing a film off of an app may make some aggravated simply over the concept but it’s no doubt a clever and probably smart move in the long run, considering the potential for sequels, spinoffs and adaptations of other popular games. One of the film’s lead producers John Cohen recently spoke to Collider about developing the characters and the excitement that it entailed.
It was the most exciting opportunity. They were the same challenges that you would have if you were making an original movie with original characters. There were some key elements of the characters’ personalities and their unique abilities that had been defined in both the games and the short ‘Toons’ that Rovio had created.
It’s definitely an interesting way to go about an idea like The Angry Birds Movie, although it really does depend on how the opportunities are handled. Cohen went on to discuss hiring the directing team of Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis and why they were the right choice for the job.
They are incredibly talented. I met with a number of directors from all around the animation industry, both film and television, in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. What I loved about both of them from the very first times that we met was that they both had the exact same comedic sensibility that I had and that I felt this movie needed to come to life as an entertaining film. For example, Fergal’s background in story and storyboarding, he worked on some of the best animated movies of the last few years from the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies to Hotel Transylvania and The Iron Giant.
The film will should unsurprisingly be a huge hit with audiences, particularly with younger moviegoers – in fact it minted nearly $40 million on its opening weekend, besting the third week of smash Captain America: Civil War. But it is nevertheless the beginning of a new age in animated cinema. Who knows what we will be seeing down-the-line, but at least it’s comforting to see that there is a very capable team behind films like this.
The Angry Birds Movie is currently playing in theaters.
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