Saturday 12 October 2013

Animation Veterans/Directorial First-Timers Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly to Direct Angry Birds


Rovio are expanding their smash-hit Angry Birds franchise rapidly; what started life as a mobile game is now an all-spanning merchandise line, a series of animated shorts and, soon enough, an animated feature. Angry Birds, which will smash its way into cinemas (distributed by Sony) on 1st July, 2016, now has a pair of directors, says Entertainment Weekly.

Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly, both long-time veterans of animation but first-time directors, will helm the pig-crushing big screen outing. Kaytis is a long-time Disney guy also known for his popular Animation Podcast; he served as animation supervisor on Tangled and Bolt, and an animator on Wreck-It Ralph and Paperman. Reilly has worked as a story artist on a wide range of fantastic films like The Iron Giant, Spider-Man 2 and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.


Angry Birds is produced by Rainmaker pres. Catherine Winder and John Cohen (Despicable Me); David Maisel (Iron Man) is exec. producing. Jon Vitti (The Simpsons, The Critic) is penning the screenplay. Rovio are making the film in-house.

I've remained rather hopeful for the Angry Birds movie, and with a strong production team, the existing, rather fun, short films Rovio have made, and now these consummate animators at the tiller, this could be a really fun animated film. Watch this space.

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