Good news for fans of the Angry Birds franchise — the game’s creators have decided to move ahead with a sequel to its successful animation movie, which it released in May.
Rovio Entertainment Ltd., which released the Angry Birds puzzle game for iOS and Android in 2009, has since come out with dozens of spin off games, animated series, comic books, merchandise, and more. The Angry Birds Movie, which came out in May 2016, took in an estimated $346.9 million at the box office worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. It did so with a budget of $73 million.
The movie’s opening weekend in North America beat out Captain America: Civil War’s third weekend in theaters, pulling in $38.2 million.
While Rovio’s Chief Executive Kati Levoranta confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that the company has begun planning the sequel, she did not provide further details.
CinemaScore rated the movie an A+ among under 25 audiences, and Rovio will surely aim to match that success in the sequel. There’s no word on whether the new film will return directors Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis, and voices from Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, and Danny McBride.
The Journal also reported that regardless of the movie’s income, the company was profitable for the first half of 2016, with earnings of $6.4 million and $85.5 million in total revenue before taxes. The numbers don’t include earnings from the movie.
Rovio’s revenue has been in decline for three straight years before the film’s release, with an operating loss of $14.5 million last year — the company had also been forced to chop its workforce nearly in half, from 800 to 470, in 2014.
However, the earnings of the film have pushed the company to revenue growth of 24 percent in the first half of 2016, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company is also in development with several new game titles to bolster its app lineup for Android and Apple devices.
As for the first Angry Birds film, the movie has come out on DVD and several online streaming services in recent weeks in North America and Asia, and is set for an October cinema release in October, Rovio told The Journal.
