It was 23 years ago that Mel Gibson voiced a chicken in Aardman’s first Chicken Run movie and much has changed since then. Mel Gibson is no longer voicing chickens but Aardman, the Bristol animation house behind that stop-motion triumph, is still ticking along very nicely indeed.
With a little help from Netflix, the Wallace and Gromit animators are heading back to the farmyard with a long-gestating sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. It’ll be on the streaming platform later this year and will introduce a new flock of chooks undertaking another brush with a basting. Here’s what you need to know.
What’s the Chicken Run 2 release date?
It’ll be landing on Netflix on December 15, just in time for Christmas
Who is in the cast for Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget?
In the place of Julia Sawalha and Mel Gibson from the first Chicken Run come Thandiwe Newton and Shazam!’s Zachary Levi to voice Ginger and Rocky. Providing the voice of their plucky daughter Molly is The Last of Us’s Bella Ramsey, while Jane Horrocks and Imelda Staunton are returning voices from the first film as the guileless, knitting-loving Babs and cynical champion egg-layer, Bunty, respectively.
Daniel Mays and Romesh Ranganathan replace Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels as scrounging rats Nick and Fetcher, and Game of Thrones’ David Bradley voices aviating chicken Fowler. Directing is Flushed Away’s Sam Fell.
Is there a trailer?
Not yet. Expect something to emerge, chick-like, in the autumn.
Any details on the plot?
The first Chicken Run was a feathery riff on The Great Escape, with Ginger and Rocky busting out of the farm and flying to a bird sanctuary. According to the official synopsis, the sequel is more of a break-in movie.
‘Having pulled off a death-defying escape from Tweedy's Farm, Ginger has finally found her dream – a peaceful island sanctuary for the whole flock, far from the dangers of the human world,’ it reads. ‘When she and Rocky hatch a little girl called Molly, Ginger's happy ending seems complete. But back on the mainland the whole of chicken-kind faces a new and terrible threat. For Ginger and her team, even if it means putting their own hard-won freedom at risk – this time, they're breaking in!"