Aardman Animation Studios has announced, 20 years to the day after its theatrical release, that they will be producing a sequel to their film Chicken Run. The sequel will be backed by Netflix and they will distribute the film globally outside of China.
The sequel has long been rumored by the Netflix involvement is the big news which was revealed during an Annecy Making Of panel on the festival’s digital platform. A Netflix release that coincided with the presentation explained that Studiocanal, which has financed, distributed, and sold Aardman productions since 2015’s Shaun the Sheep Movie and Pathe, have closed a deal with Aardman to allow the transfer of the sequel rights to Netflix.
The sequel will focus on Ginger, now living in a human-free chicken paradise. There, Ginger and Rocky hatch an egg together and daughter Molly is born. Molly grows up quickly and she begins to outgrow the island. At the same time, rumors start to float of a new and terrible threat on the mainland, forcing Ginger to rally the troops and put their own hard-won freedom at risk for the good of all chicken-kind.
20 years after its release, Chicken Run is still the highest-grossing stop-motion animated film of all-time with a gross of $224.8 million worldwide. The movie went on to be nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2000 Oscars. In the first film, when a cockerel apparently flies into a chicken farm, the chickens see him as an opportunity to escape their evil owners.
