Rovio, the creator of Angry Birds, hired former Marvel Studios chairman David Maisel as a special adviser last week. Maisel, who left Marvel in 2009 after Walt Disney Co. bought the studio for $4 billion, will be executive producer on the yet-untitled flick.
“There has been so much chatter about an Angry Birds movie, but now it’s real,” Maisel told Variety. “The process is starting now.” Maisel was at Marvel from 2003 to 2009, and executive produced Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.
Bringing Maisel on is Rovio’s latest steps toward expanding its Angry Birds franchise into feature films. Last month, the company bought Finnish animation studio Kombo, which will start working on short films using the Angry Birds characters. The development of a full-length movie, however, will take three or four years, Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio's chief marketing officer, told The Telegraph last month. Vesterbacka said Rovio is open to working with Hollywood studios, but added, "We don’t have to do what everyone else is doing, so we are perfectly OK going against the conventional wisdom.”