Angry Birds has Ice Age film aspirations

By Robert Purchese Published 19 July, 2011

Rovio plans more than one movie.

Rovio Mobile believes Angry Birds has enough "storytelling opportunities" for the once humble iPhone game to be spun into multiple movies.

Think along the lines of the Ice Age series of films, Rovio VP of franchise development Ville Heijari told Eurogamer.

"How I see our whole brand, our whole Angry Birds franchise - I definitely see the film potential as a long-term commitment," said Heijari.

"Not just the one-off flick that happened, but to really flesh out the world, build the characters, make it really engaging."

"We're not trying to imitate or copycat anybody," Heijari continued, "but if you think of examples of what has been done before, if you think of something like Ice Age: there's three movies, pretty popular - that sort of thing. Really breathe a lot of life into and flesh out the world of Angry Birds.

"We really genuinely have a lot of storytelling opportunities there. It's not all about birds slingshotting themselves!"

Ville Heijari

"We really genuinely have a lot of storytelling opportunities there. It's not all about birds slingshotting themselves! Ha! There's a lot of stuff going around the characters."

Rovio recently hired former Marvel chairman David Maisel as a "special advisor" to steer the first Angry Birds film project. "The development has actually started," revealed Ville Heijari, but is in its "very, very early stages".

In practice that means Maisel will use the "modest grant" awarded by the Finnish Film Fund to flesh-out the Angry Birds film project. "Maisel is the special advisor in Hollywood," Heijari elaborated. "He will look into what are the best and most feasible production models for us, and of course the funding and distribution and so on."

The wheels are in motion, then, but don't expect a Christmas 2012 cinematic Angry Birds release.

"If we started production today, the earliest date would be in 2014."

Ville Heijari, VP franchise development, Rovio

"If we started production today, the earliest date would be in 2014 - maybe," predicted Heijari. "When we're talking about a full feature film, that's really impossible to comment at the moment because that's really in the planning stages."

Rovio's ambitions also incorporate an Angry Birds animated series on telly. It's one of the reasons Rovio bought Finnish animation studio Kombo in the spring. "They really take our ambition there to the next level," said Heijari.

In the "best case" scenario, Heijari said Rovio would offer both Angry Bird films and Angry Birds animations.

"[An] animation series is going to be faster to produce than the movie," added Heijari. "Even if we announce that we're in production with the movie, which well, like I said, we're developing the movie we're not quite in production yet.

"Even when we eventually might announce that we've started the production of the movie, we still might end up releasing animations - an animated series first, just because the production cycles are so much shorter."

Heijari said lots of animations are piped down on demand services and online. In the future, Rovio "looks to have" an Angry Birds-specific television channel where you will be served Angry Birds animations and play Angry Birds games.

The Rovio Twitter account was recently renamed AngryBirds. It's small change indicative of a larger mindset - that Angry Birds is more than simple pig-bashing mini-game. It's a brand that's understood intimately now by 250 million people around the world, hence the plush Angry Birds toys.

Rovio may be a one-game wonder, but what wonderful success that game has had.

Angry Birds unofficially on Kinect.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • riceNpea #1 10 months ago

    please no.

  • captain_Carl #2 10 months ago

    the fuck?

  • Dr_Cowley #3 10 months ago

    We dont care!

    Rovio are the video game equivalent of some one like Cheryl Cole, no real appeal but the press wont shut the fuck up about every single fucking thing they do. Eurogamer are becoming nothing more than 'Hello' for video games

  • NeverWinter78 #4 10 months ago

    Rovio you got lucky with a very simple game. That's all. There wasn't enough content to do another game and yet you did 3. Do you really think any one would pay to watch a film about a 59p mobile phone game ? TW@T

  • Golgo #5 10 months ago

    One can only hope that this git's over-ambition and loathsome self-confidence ends up bankrupting him.

  • RandolphScott #6 10 months ago

    Aren't Rovio bigger than PopCap? That's what I heard.
    Edited by RandolphScott at 19/07/11 @ 17:50

  • captain_Carl #7 10 months ago

    ^ no. Rovio guy basically said "I value Rovio higher than PopCap"

  • wez_316 #8 10 months ago

    Not interested in the Angry Birds films but cannot wait for the inevitable crossovers of Alien Vs Birds and Birds Vs Predator. Oh and I'm sure that Pixar are quaking in their boots after reading this :/

  • Subdominator #9 10 months ago

    One company, 34 games, 33 flops, 1 hit. Or is it? Fact: Angry Birds has been downloaded 250 million times. Yet only 12 million people (that's less than 5 %, normally successful games have a sell/trial rate of about 20 %) have the full version. Which was sold for one [insert your favorite currency here]. That's a revenue of 12 million. And what happens? They talk investors into giving them 42 million dollar. Now we know why. To make a movie (that nobody will want to see). And here I thought Rio was that movie, that they want to do now - with there being an Angry Birds Rio version and such.

    55 employee company makes game and gets 12 million (Angry Birds)
    vs.
    1 (now six) employee company makes a game and gets 35 million (Minecraft)

    Guess which company will be around in five years and which will not.

  • Feanor #10 10 months ago

    "If we started production today, the earliest date would be in 2014."

    And of course Angry Birds will still be a big deal three years from now because mobile gamers aren't fickle in the slightest.

  • Skooch #11 10 months ago

    LOL at RandolphScott - I hope that was sarcasm! :-D

    Angry birds just isn't that good a game and as Subdominator has stated rather well the success they have seen is limited somewhat and yet they really are running away with themselves.

    Maybe they think they are the birds nerds? (Bees knees, mutts nutts - best I could do)

  • darc #12 10 months ago

    Jesus Christ, Angry Birds is the Micheal Bolton of video games.

  • Daeltaja #13 10 months ago

    Who the hell will want to see this?

  • GooseUK #14 10 months ago

    What the hell, it took a 55 person company to make this trial and error piece of SHIT?

    Wow, just wow. I always imagined it as one dude in a room, smoking crack, dossing about on a mac.

  • NeonStorm #15 10 months ago

    This has got to stop.

  • darc #16 10 months ago

    ...possibly Kenny G.

  • Smoped #17 10 months ago

    Sure, if they get a great team, they can make a decent movie. Angry birds versus green pigs isn't that much worse than the premises of several past cartoons. But then again, these guys aren't Pixar or Dreamworks. If they want to do it themselves I'd say the probability of the flick being any good decreases significantly.

  • man.the.king #18 10 months ago

    Angry Birds movie => Annoyed People

  • OrangesJoel #19 10 months ago

    "We're not trying to imitate or copycat anybody..."

    ... Too easy.

  • Vyggo #20 10 months ago

    Do we really need to see every fart of these guys in the news section? (Yes I know I clicked on it)

  • Bravestinsane #21 10 months ago

    Wow.... i just thought the best business plan ever.....


    Steal a idea thats been around, make it a little worse, but with pretty visuals, flog is as a cheap mobile phone game. Make sequels that are exactly the same. A few plush toys, milk it a little more.....then milk it some more to make it into films.........without never having the need to think of anything new.....i should try it sounds like a good idea to me....


    PS, i have android, so i can gladly say i have never paid for angry birds.

  • captain_theCaptain #22 10 months ago

    milk it

  • paulf #23 10 months ago

    the more this bloke talks the more delusional he sounds

    @subdominator although I agree with your main point angry birds has made more than 12 million

    http://www.industrygamers.com/news/angry...

  • IronGiant #24 10 months ago

    Oh dear oh dear.. Yet another small company is becoming greedy thinking way above their station. An angry birds movie will flop just as hard as the stuffed toys have, ridiculous idea.

  • Rens11 #25 10 months ago

    Why!?

  • Neil__ #26 10 months ago

    Please make this film.
    Don't forget to invest millions of your own money.
    Then when it flops you might SHUT THE FUCK UP for once.

  • chrisjm #27 10 months ago

    i'd welcome any film as good as ice age as its a great movie. but im not holding my breath this will be it.

  • Subdominator #28 10 months ago

    @paulf: The brand has made 50 million Euro, that's including merchandising and ads. For some reason they stopped sharing numbers for sold copies late last year and since only talk about download numbers. Which obviously can be easily manipulated.

  • Deinsleaf #29 10 months ago

    What? Rovio made one game that hit the sweet spot of casual gamers then they go like this? Talk about arrogance.

  • dagas #30 10 months ago

    Soon we will see school children with angry birds backpacks? It might be the next pikachu or Hello Kitty.

  • TruSmiles #31 10 months ago

    I've been seeing Angry Birds plushies everywhere now. I went to Taybarns last night and they were there too! I fell to my knees and cursed the sky.

    And this is just the beginning.

  • Makeem95 #32 10 months ago

    This whole company is starting to sound like a scam. They're talking up Angry Birds constantly, going on about how the franchise is going to expand to epic proportions when most people know that's utter bollocks.

    I reckon they're hoping for some dumb bastard to offer a stupid truckload of cash for the IP, after which they'll be hit with some severe buyer's remorse.

  • Harmonica #33 10 months ago

    Fuck Rovio and their birds.

  • Ranger101 #34 10 months ago

    "We really genuinely have a lot of storytelling opportunities there. It's not all about birds slingshotting themselves!"

    It's precisely about birds slingshotting themselves. That's the ONLY thing it's about, and that's not an original idea either.

  • Subdominator #35 10 months ago

    @deinsleaf: Their own words: "We want to become Disney 2.0"

  • Ikaros_O #36 10 months ago

    No, dear god no!