Angry Birds Bigger Than Disney?

Angry Birds

Mikael Hed, chief exec­u­tive of Finnish gam­ing com­pany Rovio, says the com­pany is going ahead with a 2016 fea­ture film based on his company’s famous avians, the Angry Birds. But Hed is not happy just mak­ing a fea­ture film, he plans on tak­ing the giant of children’s ani­ma­tion, Disney.

The Rovio chief exec­u­tive told AFP that the ani­mated 3D film– which will not be released until the sum­mer of 2016– could lead to the com­pany set­ting up an ani­mated movie stu­dio that would com­pete with California-based Walt Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion Studios.

“If this goes very well, that is what is going to hap­pen. Cer­tainly we are struc­tur­ing this in a way so that it’s pos­si­ble for us to con­tinue to pro­duce more movies after this one,” he said.

Rovio seems to be start­ing out right… they have brought in John Cohen, pro­ducer of computer-animated com­edy “Despi­ca­ble Me” to pro­duce it, and David Maisel, for­mer chair­man of Mar­vel Stu­dios, as an exec­u­tive producer.

And ani­mated films are not the only front Rovio is tak­ing on the ani­ma­tion giant. The com­pany already has two theme parks, on in Fin­land and one in Great Britain. They are build­ing a third Angry Birds Land in Asia next year at a site near Shanghai.

Rovio has also part­nered with children’s cable net­work Nick­elodeon for a series of Angry Birds spe­cials, includ­ing Angry Birds – Wreck The Halls and  Angry Birds Space.

Is that enough to take on Dis­ney? Only time will tell… but it does seem that Rovio is aim­ing high for a one-trick pony.

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