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Good news for Angry Birds fans: a new game in the feathery franchise will flutter our way in March, with a Hollywood twist.
Angry Birds Rio will be based on 20th Century Fox’s new animated 3D flick, Rio. Judging by the teaser artwork above, the game will star characters from the film, alongside the angry birds we have come to know, love and regularly fire into the sky.
The game will have 45 new levels, and will be available on a range of smart phones and tablets, according to VentureBeat. The plot will involve the angry birds being kidnapped and whisked off to Rio de Janeiro, before escaping and trying to save their macaw mates, Blu and Jewel.
The new game will be heavily promoted ahead of the film’s release in April, with Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka claiming: “This gets us massive global visibility, as if we had made our own
movie.”
You could argue that Rio is actually the main beneficiary of the deal, though, thanks to the existence of tens of millions of Angry Birds fans around the world. Angry Birds has become a mobile-gaming phenomenon, racking up more than 50 million downloads across the iPhone, Android and other smart-phone platforms.
Alas, it seems the angry birds won’t be making a cameo appearance in the actual film, though, so Rovio’s winged heroes will have to wait for their big-screen debut. The developer made noises last year about an Angry Birds movie being in the works, but such plans may now have been scaled back to a cartoon TV series instead.
Angry Birds isn’t the only mobile game to attract the attention of Hollywood. Fellow multi-million-selling iPhone game Doodle Jump has its own big-screen deal, along similar lines. The rabbit hero from Universal Pictures’ upcoming Hop film will be making a guest appearance in a forthcoming update to Doodle Jump.
