Chicken Run 2 director says Mrs Tweedy wasn't always returning as villain
Sam Fell also joked that the new film could be called "Chicken: Impossible".
More than 20 years after the first film became an instant claymation classic, a sequel to Chicken Run is finally here – with Dawn of the Nugget now playing in select UK cinemas ahead of a Netflix release next week.
A lot has changed for Ginger, Rocky and the rest of the flock when we begin the new film, which finds them living on a utopian island paradise and about to welcome a new chick to their family.
But when that chick grows up to become an intrepid adventurer, old enemies soon rear their heads once again, and the plucky poultry must face off with their evil former owner Mrs Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) if they are to avert a calamity.
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Bringing back the familiar foe for the follow-up might seem like it would have been a no-brainer, but director Sam Fell explained during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com that this hadn't always been the plan.
"Funnily enough, that's why I've been around [on this project] for six years," he explained. "Because for the first two years, we didn't have Mrs Tweedy, we had a male villain – as we were much more concentrating on Rocky as a character.
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"And so, in that process, it really became clear that Ginger… it should be the next chapter of Ginger’s story. She's just such an amazing hero in the first film [which] was an extraordinary, very amazing, sort of feminist movie.
"You know, strong female characters, including Mrs Tweedy."
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He added that the creative team soon decided motherhood should be the main focus of the new film, giving Ginger a daughter that was a "chick off the old block", and this eventually led them to realise that a rematch with Mrs Tweedy made perfect sense.
"What better thing to do?" he said. "When we're thinking about Ginger, we were just thinking about how she would be kind of haunted by the past.
"And so the rematch, a chance for her re-face off with her nemesis and have to deal with the past, as well as with the present and the future of her daughter, it all came together really nicely.”
While the first film was pitched as 'The Great Escape with chickens', the second is much more expansive in its scale – and Fell explained that the sequel has a few things in common with one of cinema's most beloved action franchises.
"It's Chicken: Impossible," he laughed. "You know, it's like, this time they're breaking in – that is the tagline. That's the thing that's unlocked it.
"It took forever to get to that. It's kind of embarrassing how long it's taken to get this right. But yeah, this time we're breaking in, a heist – Chicken: Impossible!"
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is now playing in select UK cinemas and arrives on Netflix on 15th December 2023, while the first film is available now. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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