The High Cost of Angry Birds
Thursday, April 16, 2015 at 12:00PM 
Tim here. News came out this week that the upcoming feature adaptation of the handheld video game Angry Birds, a Finnish-American co-production set to be animated by Sony Picture Imageworks, has the eyebrow-raising price tag of €180 million, or a bit more than $190 million. That's not quite as dumbfounding a total as it sounds: it includes the marketing budget, something virtually never reported in advance, and the total production budget is a much lowlier €80 million. Which still makes it the most expensive movie ever made in Finland by a factor of almost ten.
No matter how you subdivide it, though, that's a huge pile of money that Sony and Rovio Entertainment are throwing at a 90-minute video game commercial. My current suspicion: most of that money is earmarked for building a time machine that transports audience members back to 2011, the last time that making an Angry Birds feature film made any sense whatsoever.
Reader Comments (7)
Time machines dont come cheap but that 2011 joke made me laugh. I played that game so much. and then deleted it from my phone once I forgot all about it.
Tim: Yeah, pretty much. Angry Birds is a distraction game without staying power and I don't think anyone wants this that much. I made a top 10 list of games that should actually be movies. I had five considerations:
1. Has it been adapted to a theatrically released movie before? (Mario, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Wing Commander, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Doom, BloodRayne, Silent Hill, Dead or Alive, Postal, Hitman, Dungeon Siege, Max Payne, Prince of Persia, Need For Speed.)
2. Is it good in ways that would make sense as a movie? (Angry Birds, Pikmin, Temple Run, Cut the Rope, Gran Turismo, Minecraft and Splinter Cell?) (Confused about that last one? Movies haven't really been good at the whole "stealth" thing. Getting in and out clean is more thrilling when it's interactive.)
3. Is it doing something that hasn't been done that often, if at all, in a movie? (Uncharted and Warcraft?)
4. Is it appropriate to adapt outside of the medium? (Spec Ops and Assassin's Creed films? Next we'll see a Rear Window video game.)
5. Is it really appropriate to adapt to a short form format? (Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last of Us would all seem more suited to a show format if adapted at all.)
So, with those considerations out of the way, here's my 10:
10. Five Nights at Freddy's (Corporate mascot as horror. It's not too common and I think there'll be at least a few interesting and new things that could be done with the hook. If not, it could still be a good enough horror film.) Status: In Development.
9. Bayonetta (Yeah, I know Hollywood would NEVER do it because of the obvious controversial element...no, you perverted idiots, not the sex stuff (which is way more PG-13 in the how of it than you think), I'm talking about the monster angels, but this could be a very unique film if a studio really goes for it.) Status: Not in development.
8. Monkey Island (A pirate story, but with open and blatant anachronisms as opposed to the myriad of subtle, uncatchable if you're not looking, "mistakes" in PotC.) Status: Not in development.)
7. Portal (Everyone wants this and I absolutely see why. It's a little too unconventional to hit the upper tiers, but I would love Hollywood to do it.) Status: Not in development.
6. Sonic the Hedgehog (Here's one I want less due to anything in the actual games and more due to the mostly pretty good comic published by Archie that's been going on for 20+ years.) Status: In development, looking like it's shooting for 25th anniversary.
5: Saints Row (Even from Quentin, we haven't seen a crime film embrace a tone that's quite as cartoonish as the most recent releases. So, I would be looking for something to create a version of the first game's plot with the tone of those most recent releases. If the right director is interested, this could be something absolutely unconventional in a very picked clean genre.) Status: Not in development.
4: Legend of Zelda (Really, this franchise is so malleable that how a movie wasn't pitched, green lit, filmed and sent out the door soon after LOTR can only be explained by a hyper paranoid game company who needs to get over their pain a little better. Most preferably, this would be a short candy-coloured fantasy shooting for Wind Waker to make it stand out from the LOTR clones.) - Status: Not in development. (Doesn't need it as much like the one above it and isn't as interesting as a couple others above it, but it's bad that we're getting Warcraft, almost certainly a dark fantasy LOTR derivative, before this.)
3: Metroid (Yeah, if I remember right, Nintendo was working with John Woo when attempting to develop this. Because when you think "female action hero" AND "feeling isolated on an alien planet" you think the guy who made A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled.) Status: Not in development. (Sad, because after the toxic wastefill that was Other M, Metroid almost NEEDS a movie to set things straight again.)
2: BioShock (Gore Verbinski's production house almost did this in the early 10s, but the studio blanched at the budget needed to create this certain to be R-rated project.) Status: Not in development.
1: Deus Ex (Yeah, no question on this. It's based around an under explored topic right now such that I imagine a lot of directors could be tripping over themselves to get first stab at it under the pretense of it being a "brand.") Status: In development.
In my actual top 10, only 3 are in any stage of development right now. That's not exactly good.
Seriously, this film is way out of date. Mind you people shelled out a lot of money to see other mindless stuff like "Ninja Turtles"... how did this manage to cost so much?
I actually redownloaded the game the other day because my little cousins reminded me of it, and I've been a bit addicted. Just because I want to complete every level with three stars. But imagine my creeped out shock when I come on the film experience and see a post about it! I totally forgot they were making a movie lol. Definitely past the brief window period they had to make it.
And my comment goes over like a wet flop. (Sigh) I know this is a small article that no one who goes here is really looking at, but I'd have expected at least ONE reaction to that list.
@Volvagia: your list is very interesting! :)
I agree that Metal Gear Solid would make a tremendous show, but I prefer the feature format for now (not enough time ;) ) : I would love to see MGS on the big screen !
I am from Finland and I can tell Rovio is a bit of a crazily ambitions company (emphasis on crazy). I think the CEO once said they wanted to be bigger than Disney (I remember this because I laughed so much). The Angry Birds products are everywhere here, sheets, board games, candies, shampoo you name it (I love the candies however). It is kind of nice that Finnish company has ambition once, usually everyone is so pessimistic here about changes of success, but I do not really think this film is going to be a huge hit. Sony does not really have a great record of successful animated films either.