Aardman Animation has announced Chicken Run 2 after 18 year long wait as Hollywood Reporter reported. Though the animation studio hasn’t set a release date, it declared the news in a tweet with “Rocky and Ginger are coming home to roost!” tagline.
The Bristol-based studio has collaborated with StudioCanal (its partner for Early Man and Shaun the Sheep Movie) and Pathé (cofinancer of the original film with DreamWorks Animation and handled European distribution) for the feature.
Chicken Run (2000) which still remains highest-grossing stop-motion animation film of all-time ($224.8 million at the box office), centered around including Rocky and Ginger, desperate to escape the evil Mrs Tweedy’s clutches before her Yorkshire farm is turned into a chicken pot pie factory.
The original film (also Aardman’s first feature film) was directed by Lord and Nick Park, who created Wallace and Gromit, but Park does not appear to be attached to the sequel.
Sam Fell (ParaNorman, Flushed Away) is roped in to direct the film, with Paul Kewley (Shaun the Sheep Movie) producing it. The original Chicken Run writers Karey Kirkpatrick (Over the Hedge, The Smurfs 2) and John O’Farrell have been brought back to pen the screenplay though the story is kept under wraps. Aardman co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton will be the executive producers.
Chicken Run has received several critics association awards apart from BAFTA, Golden Globe and Annie Award nominations. No official confirmation has been made if members of the original cast, including Julia Sawalha as Ginger and Mel Gibson as cockerel Rocky Rhodes, will return to voice their respective characters.
Chicken Run 2 is pipelined after Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (due in 2019) which is currently under production at Aardman.