Chicken Run 2: The puppets also underwent quarantine during COVID

Director Sam Fell talks about this long-awaited sequel to the biggest stop-motion hit in cinema history.

In an interview given to Hollywood Reporter, Sam Fellthe director of Chicken Run: The nugget threattells what the Aardman studio went through to make this sequel possible.

The first part, released in 2000 and directed by Nick Park and Peter Lord, reached 3 million admissions at the French box office. With a profit of $227.8 million at the American box office, Chicken Run holds the record for the greatest stop-motion hit in cinema history.

It is therefore a damn important legacy which weighs on the shoulders of Sam Fellwhich takes over 23 years after this success, for a sequel which will be broadcast on Netflix.

The director explains that the project has been in development since 2017: “I saw Peter Lord again at an event (…) and we talked, he told me that they had things in development and that they would like to do something with me. (…) Only good projects. But their jewel was the next one Chicken Run. It made me feel strange, because it was scary, but super tempting too. (…) But I knew it was super important for the studio (…) – their first feature film, their most famous and most loved. So a mixture of fear and desire pushed me to say: ‘I’d like to try my luck.’”.

Chicken Run or the genius of Aardman

Officially announced in 2018, this sequel suffered the fallout from the pandemic, just like many projects in development, even though filming had already started. Even if we imagine that stop-motion makes it possible to circumvent social distancing, thanks to very small teams, Sam Fell says that the cult puppets also had to comply with the rules of quarantine.

“The first wave came while we were developing the storyboard and design so it was okay. But the second wave began at the start of filming. And yes, the animator ends up working alone but for him to be able to work, there is first a lighting team, stagehands… it’s very interactive. (…) So everyone was masked and respected barrier gestures. And when the puppets were made, because they were handmade, they had to go into quarantine. There was an area dedicated to the quarantine of puppets with UV lights. Babs the hen had to go into quarantine for ten days or three weeks.” he explains.

Chicken Run: The Nugget Menace tells how Ginger (Thandiwe Newton), Rocky (Zachary Levi) and their gang decide to come out of their well-deserved retirement and infiltrate a chicken industrial complex to free their peers. They will find an old enemy…

The film will be available on Netflix from December 15, 2023.

Chicken Run 2: Julia Sawalha won’t voice Ginger again because her voice “sounds too old”