Rovio announced today they've signed a deal with Sony Pictures to have the avian menace hit the silver screen in glorious 3D, July 1st of 2016. According to a press release, several companies competed over the past few weeks to win the distribution rights to the movie, but in the end, it was Sony who emerged victorious.
According to Rovio's CEO, Mikael Hed, "Sony impressed us with their great attitude, determination, and professionalism. They convinced us that we have found the right partners and team to help us market and distribute our first motion picture."
Despicable Me's John Cohen was announced as producer for the Angry Birds movie back in December. Cohen joins fellow Angry Birds movie staffers David Maisel, whose credits include former Chairman of Marvel Studios and executive producer of Iron Man.
Just about anything under the Angry Birds brand has been a huge success, and Rovio expects the movie to be no different. To date, the Angry Birds and Bad Piggies games have been downloaded more than 1.7 billion times across platforms and versions, and the Angry Birds Toons has similarly been a massive hit, bringing in over 150 million views within the first six weeks from the Angry Birds apps alone.
Angry Birds has branched out onto virtually everything with a screen, be it home consoles, PC's, e-readers, Smart TV's, and so on, with new episodes and spin-offs, and now, even plush toys, a clothing line, soda, and fruit snacks, to name just a few pieces of merchandise.
Maisel spoke with IGN back in October about development of the movie, saying, "It's got to be everything that you'd expect from an Angry Birds movie as a fan of the game, plus so much more with surprises, innovative things, and twists," he explains. "It's something that we've worked already a lot on and we will over the next few years, but we're going to try to keep it as tight as possible so that when you go into that theater, it's an experience that you say, 'Wow, I didn't expect that.'"