Netflix has confirmed a long-awaited Chicken Run sequel will be heading to its streaming service, with production expected to begin next year.
In a nice touch, Netflix confirmed the news 'exactly 20 years to the day since the original was released'.
Advert
Film fans were delighted by the announcement, with one tweeting: "The only good thing to happen since the start of 2020."
Another added: "@aardman are legends in the game. This is a good move Netflix."
While the film itself has been in the works for a little while now, news that an entertainment giant like Netflix has anything to do with it just shows how beloved the original was.
Peter Lord, Aardman Co-Founder and Creative Director, said: "Fans around the world have waited patiently for a sequel idea worthy of Chicken Run so we're delighted to announce, on the 20th anniversary, that we've found the perfect story.
Advert
"Netflix feels like the ideal creative partner for this project too: they celebrate the film-maker, which means we can make the film we want to make - the one we really care about - and share it with a global audience."
According to Netflix, the new film will follow Ginger, Rocky and their daughter Molly as they return to help other chickens find the freedom they won.
"Having pulled off a death-defying escape from Tweedy's farm, Ginger has finally found her dream - a peaceful island sanctuary for the whole flock, far from the dangers of the human world," Netflix says.
Advert
"But back on the mainland the whole of chicken-kind faces a new and terrible threat. For Ginger and her team, even if it means putting their own hard-won freedom at risk - this time, they're breaking in!"
Released in 2000, the first Chicken Run movie grossed more than £174 million ($224 million), making it the highest-grossing stop motion animated film in history.
It followed a group of chickens as they try to escape their fate of ending up in a meat pie, having lived an already-doomed life egg-laying on a Yorkshire farm. A smooth-talking American rooster called Rocky arrives and gives them hope, though it soon becomes apparent that their escape isn't quite as simple as they realise.
Advert
Aardman, the animation studio that created the original, announced that the second instalment - which will be directed by Sam Fell - was in 'early development' way back in 2018.
Towards the end of 2019, Will Becher, co-director of Aardman's latest film A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, offered something of an update, telling us that the talented folk had begun crafting the chickens for the sequel.
Advert
Speaking to Flickering Myth, he said: "Well, all I can tell you is that there were a lot of chickens being made towards the end of our film.
"We have a model-making team and, at one point, it was just full of sheep, but slowly over the course of the following weeks it became overrun with chickens.
"So there is definitely an intention there and it was announced they are in pre-production on a sequel."
Featured Image Credit: AardmanTopics: UK News, UK Entertainment
