Angry Birds Movie Slated For 2016 Courtesy Of Sony Pictures

From the portable 4 inch display in your pocket to the grand silver screen, Sony Pictures Entertainment have partnered with Rovio Entertainment to bring the Angry Birds series to the cinematic audience. Kicking around since 2010, today’s deal brought with it a firm release date for the proposed movie, which has been penned for July 1, 2016 in 3D.

In absorbing the distributing rights to the unfathomably popular series – it’s estimated that Angry Birds has hit some 1.7 billion downloads worldwide – Sony Pictures have expressed a determined attitude to justify their adaption of the kamikaze creatures. Here’s what the CEO of Rovio, Mikael Hed, had to say about the agreement:

“Sony impressed us with their great attitude, determination, and professionalism. They convinced us that we have found the right partners and team to help us market and distribute our first motion picture.”

Since 2009, the Finnish game developer have become an industry giant and Angry Birds can take a large amount of credit for bringing out the gamer in everyone. What is essentially a modernised and accessible version of Team 17’s Worms series has become a cultural phenomenon in such a short period of time. At the moment, though, it’s hard to imagine how the creative team will construct a narrative around the simple interactive experience. Alas, that’s a job for John Cohen and David Maisel who, having produced Despicable Me and Iron Man respectively, are both on to collaborate for Rovio’s feature film from a producing standpoint.

Expressing their collective excitement about the project, here’s what Cohen and Maisel said in a statement:

“We are very excited to join with Sony Pictures in presenting this movie to the world in 2016 and we will have many more announcements as we begin production in the coming months.”

With more than three years between now and the official release date, it will be some time yet before we hear any concrete information about Angry Birds 3D. For Sony’s sake, let’s hope the property is still as hip and happening in 2016, otherwise it may slip under people’s radars.

What do you make of this news? Angry Birds isn’t exactly the first video game to jump to mind when you consider game-to-film translations, but does this peak your interest? And, perhaps more alarmingly, does this mean that a Candy Crush film isn’t too far away?