The Angry Birds Movie 2

The Angry Birds Movie 2 (also referred to as Angry Birds 2) is a 2019 computer-animated comedy film based on Rovio Entertainment's Angry Birds video game series, produced by Columbia Pictures, Rovio Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. The sequel to The Angry Birds Movie (2016), the film was directed by Thurop Van Orman and co-directed by John Rice (in their directorial debuts) from a screenplay by Peter Ackerman, Eyal Podell, and Jonathon E. Stewart. Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Tony Hale, Bill Hader and Peter Dinklage reprise their roles from the first film, with newcomers Leslie Jones, Rachel Bloom, Awkwafina, Sterling K. Brown, and Eugenio Derbez joining the ensemble cast. In the film, Red, Chuck, and Bomb are forced to team up with Leonard and the rest of the pigs when an advanced weapon threatens both Bird and Piggy Island.

Production on a sequel to The Angry Birds Movie began in August 2016, with the goal being that the sequel improves upon the first film. New ideas for the film were conceived, with the premise being that the birds and pigs work together to save themselves, which typically does not happen in most Angry Birds games. New characters for the film were announced in March 2019 along with new cast members. Heitor Pereira returned to compose the film's score, with artists such as Kesha and Luke Combs contributing tracks for the film.

The film was theatrically released on August 2, 2019 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and in the United States on August 13. It has grossed over $148 million worldwide and received average reviews, with many considered it an improvement over its predecessor. It is also the highest ranked video game movie of all time on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot
Three years after Red became the hero of Bird Island, he now runs a business protecting it smoothly with his two best friends Chuck and Bomb. They and the rest of the birds and pigs are in a constant prank war against each other after Piggy Island, which was destroyed in a prior battle with the birds,[N 2] is rebuilt. Eventually, a giant ice ball from a nearby isle called Eagle Island hits the sea near Piggy Island, forcing the pigs to seek an emergency truce with the birds. Zeta, the leader of Eagle Island, is fed up with her frozen surroundings and wants to occupy the two islands by shooting ice balls from an advanced super-weapon to force their inhabitants to evacuate.

Meanwhile, three hatchlings, one of whom is Terence and Matilda's daughter Zoe, plan to reenact a battle between birds and pigs using Zoe's three egg siblings at a beach, but the eggs drift out to sea by accident. They set sail to retrieve them, but once they catch up to them, a whale blows them into a cloud. They manage to get them down after inflating Zoe into the air only to misplace them again.

Chuck and Bomb force Red to join them in a speed dating activity, where Red meets Chuck's sister Silver, an intelligent engineering student who deems him incompatible.[N 3] Leonard, the King of Piggy Island, meets Red at his house and convinces him to build an alliance with the pigs. They recruit Bomb, Chuck, Mighty Eagle and Silver. A team meeting in Mighty Eagle's cave is disrupted when an ice ball hits Eagle Mountain, destroying a portion of the mountain during the process.

As the team prepare to travel to Eagle Island by submarine, Red assures the civilians that they do not need to evacuate. Once there, Mighty Eagle confesses that Zeta is his ex-fiancée whom he abandoned due to cowardice, and he retreated to Bird Island. Red insists on fighting alone but Silver decides to follow him instead. They intrude the base from the mouth of the weapon only to be captured by the guards. The other team members disguise themselves as a Trojan Eagle and grab a key card to get into the base. Their disguise rips apart, but not before they drive the eagle guards into a breakdance battle, allowing them to escape.

Elsewhere, the three hatchlings finally find the eggs on a small island, guarded by a snake. They defeat it and plan to drift back to Bird Island, but arrive at Piggy Island by mistake and are greeted by three piglets whom they travel with by hot air balloon.

As Red and Silver are confined with their extremities frozen to inflatable recliners, Zeta tells them her plan to fire ice balls filled with lava at both islands. Red, who regrets not telling the islanders to evacuate, admits his selfish desire to be liked by everyone to Silver, who comforts him and frees them both using her long crest-braids, reuniting with the team. Red gives up leadership to Silver, who establishes a plan to destroy the weapon. Silver and Red put themselves in an ice ball and roll on a rail towards Zeta's super-weapon, but the plan fails and the whole team are confronted by Zeta and her guards, giving her a chance to fire the weapon.

Suddenly, Mighty Eagle arrives to apologize to Zeta, but she quarrels with him, revealing his name as Ethan and that she raised a daughter, her servant Debbie, on her own. While Zeta is distracted, Silver tells Chuck to tie up the weapon using her super string, which catches and decelerates the lava balls after Zeta fires them. As the string breaks, the hatchlings and the piglets passing by Eagle Island help grasp it. The lava balls slide back into the weapon, destroying the whole base.

Everyone escapes, and Mighty Eagle protects Debbie from being crushed by a metal plate, redeeming himself to her and Zeta. Mighty Eagle and Zeta get married on Bird Island, with Red as the chief witness. Everyone praises Red for saving the islands, but he credits Silver and the team for doing so, unveiling a Mount Rushmore-style monument to them, and to his surprise, being even more beloved for his honesty and selflessness. The birds and the pigs have a huge party to celebrate while Red and Silver begin a romantic relationship and Chuck comes in to interrupt the two.

In a pre-credits scene, the hatchlings put the eggs back home, but three snakelets hatch instead. The injured mother snake comes and exchanges the babies with them, only for the three new hatchlings to drift out to sea again, waving goodbye to Zoe, to her dismay.

Cast

 * Jason Sudeikis as Red
 * Rachel Bloom as Silver
 * Leslie Jones as Zeta
 * Josh Gad as Chuck
 * Bill Hader as King Leonard
 * Danny McBride as Bomb
 * Suzanne Waters as Bomb's Opera Voice
 * Awkwafina as Courtney
 * Sterling K. Brown as Garry Pig
 * Eugenio Derbez as Glenn
 * Peter Dinklage as Ethan "Mighty" Eagle
 * Beck Bennett as Hank, Brad
 * Zach Woods as Carl Eagle
 * Pete Davidson as Jerry Eagle
 * Lil Rel Howery as Alex
 * Dove Cameron as Ella
 * Nicki Minaj as Pinky
 * Genesis Tennon as ViVi (Vincent)
 * JoJo Siwa as Jay, Kira
 * Maya Rudolph as Matilda
 * Anthony Padilla as Hal
 * Tiffany Haddish as Debbie
 * Colleen Ballinger as Roxanne
 * David Dobrik as Axel
 * Faith Urban as Beatrice, Sophie
 * Sunday Urban as Lily, Isla
 * Alma Varsano as Sam-Sam (Samantha). Sam-Sam (Samantha) was previously voiced by Samantha Cohen in the 1st movie.
 * Gaten Matarazzo as Bubba
 * Nolan North as Terence. He was prevously voiced by Sean Penn from the 1st movie.
 * Tony Hale as Mime Bird
 * Alex Hirsch as Steve Eagle
 * Mason Ramsey as Oliver
 * Thurop Van Orman as Duck, Seal
 * Kelly Prizeman as Bomb's Momb

Development
A sequel to The Angry Birds Movie was announced in August 2016. It will be directed by The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack creator Thurop Van Orman, co-directed by John Rice, and written by Peter Ackerman. John Cohen will return from The Angry Birds Movie to serve as producer, with animation again handled by Sony Pictures Imageworks. Imageworks' sister studio Sony Pictures Animation will release the film under their banner, despite having dropped out of co-producing the project beforehand and had not co-produced the first film either.

In the summer of 2017, production designer Pete Oswald stated that the sequel would be more of an adventure movie that introduces new characters and locations into the world first established in The Angry Birds Movie. While he was not in a position to offer further details about the plot and characters, which remained unknown until the months before the film's release, he expressed hope that it would be a better film than the first installment.

The creative decision to break from the games' source material and have the Birds and Pigs end their conflict and form an alliance to face a greater threat was one that was made out of a desire to surprise audiences with a new experience with the same characters, as well as attempt to outdo what was accomplished in the first film with an unprecedented level of creative freedom available.] Josh Gad stated that the production team went forward with such idea because it was not only an "ingenious" one, but also because they felt it would feel most appropriate in light of the increasingly polarized political climate at the time, as people who disagree on significant issues struggle to find common ground.

Casting and character reveals
In April 2018, the majority of the voice cast was announced. Sudeikis, Gad, McBride, Rudolph, Hader, and Dinklage will reprise their roles from the first film. Jones will voice a new female villain, revealed to be Zeta in the teaser trailer. In December 2018, Nicki Minaj joined the cast of the film. Upon its release, the teaser trailer briefly revealed that Hal, a green boomerang bird from the first film, will return in the sequel. Anthony Padilla would return to voice Hal. The following day, producer John Cohen announced in a tweet that Awkwafina will voice Courtney, the first named female pig in the Angry Birds franchise that briefly appeared in the teaser.

When the film's first full trailer was released on March 27, 2019, more details about the sequel's characters and their voice roles were revealed. Among several new characters confirmed to appear in the movie was Silver, a bird first introduced in the Angry Birds 2 game. In June, People revealed the identity of the white bird living with Zeta in the teaser trailer as Debbie, voiced by Tiffany Haddish who was one of several voice actors not listed in the initial casting. Later that month, the film's final trailer revealed that Terence, a large red bird from the first film, will appear without Sean Penn reprising his voice role.

Animation
Unlike the previous film, the sequel was co-produced with Rovio Animation and Sony Pictures Animation. While it was possible to reuse assets from the first film instead of starting from scratch, significant work was needed to make them compatible with new technological systems that were adopted in the past few years. The animators faced great challenges attempting to create more realistic feather systems for the Birds' plumage, even with the help of Sony Pictures Imageworks' existing feather system that was first used in Stuart Little, especially when it came to designing the villain Zeta, the hardest character to animate in the film with over 1,000 controls, a very complex face structure and a tall, flexible torso. The team also faced a demanding task in designing visual effects for snow, ice, water and lava for the film and production was also affected by the unavailability of certain animators who were being used to complete Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse months prior, as well as the amount of time lost due to Sony moving the film's release date ahead by more than half a month.

Music
Heitor Pereira, who previously composed the first film, returned to compose the score of The Angry Birds Movie 2. On July 25, 2019, American singer-songwriter Kesha released her song "Best Day" for the film as a single. Days later, Luke Combs released a song, "Let's Just Be Friends" for the film as a single as well. Both singles were played in the film's end credits.

Marketing
Sony released a teaser trailer and poster for the film on February 21, 2019. A month later, the film's first full trailer was released In late June, a final trailer was released.

As with the first film, Sony also attempted to connect the film to certain social causes while marketing it, leveraging the premise of the threat of worlds being frozen to call attention to urgent action on climate change and using Silver, who is depicted as a technical expert, as a model to inspire more young women to pursue STEM disciplines.

The film was theatrically released in the United States on August 14, 2019, coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the debut of the original Angry Birds game. The film was originally scheduled to be released on September 20, 2019, but was moved two weeks from its original release date to September 6, 2019, then three weeks to August 16, 2019, then two days earlier to August 14, 2019, and finally a day earlier to August 13, 2019. It was released two weeks earlier on August 2 in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The film's North American theatrical release was preceded by Hair Love, a Kickstarter campaign short created by Matthew A. Cherry and Bruce W. Smith.

Video game
A cooperative tie-in video game, The Angry Birds Movie 2 VR: Under Pressure, was released exclusively for the PlayStation 4's PlayStation VR system on August 6, 2019. The game takes place aboard the Piggy Gadget Lab that the main characters use to get to Eagle Island for the film's climatic confrontation.

Home media
The Angry Birds Movie 2 was released on digital and Movies Anywhere by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on October 29, 2019, with Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray, and DVD releases following on November 12. All releases included an animated short film entitled Live Stream. The Ultra HD Blu-ray version was the first release of its kind to be IMAX Enhanced.

Box office
As of November 12, 2019, The Angry Birds Movie 2 has grossed $41.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $107 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $148.7 million.

In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $16–18 million from 3,800 theaters over its first six days of release. It made $2.6 million on its first day, ranking fifth and $5.7 million on its second. It ended up making $16.2 million over the six-day span (including an opening weekend of $10.6 million), finishing in fifth. It was less than a third of the first film's $38.1 million debut, and was blamed on the marketing making the sequel look the same as the first, as well as the crowded marketplace.

Critical response
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 73% based on 106 reviews, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Like its non-aerodynamic title characters, The Angry Birds Movie 2 takes improbable yet delightfully entertaining flight, landing humorous hits along the way." According to Rotten Tomatoes, it is the best-reviewed film adaptation of a video game on their website and the highest score for an animated video game movie and is rated higher than the first film. On Metacritic, the film has an weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the same score earned by its predecessor. It received an average 4 out of 5 stars and 72% "definite recommend" from parents and kids under 12 on PostTrak.