Prepare for Chicken: Impossible
TOM CRUISE, WATCH YOUR BACK. ON SET OF CHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET, WE FIND OUT HOW AARDMAN IS TAKING POULTRY TO THE NEXT LEVEL
WORDS SOPHIE BUTCHER
Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) is a chicken on a seemingly impossible mission
CHICKEN RUN WAS a feather-filled game-changer for Aardman Animation. It garnered critical acclaim, and after raking in $220 million worldwide is still the highest-grossing stop-motion movie ever. So how exactly do you top this galline titan?
The answer becomes clear to Empire in February this year, as we visit the Aardman studio in Bristol while director Sam Fell and his team work on the bigger, bolder sequel. For one, Dawn Of The Nugget sees heroes Ginger and Rocky (now voiced by Thandiwe Newton and Zachary Levi), their new daughter Molly (Bella Ramsey) and their flock swapping Tweedy’s Farm for self-made utopia Chicken Island. “It’s Wakanda for chickens,” Fell tells Empire. But a new threat awaits — the mass-produced chicken nugget — and when Molly’s curiosity leads to her being taken to a nugget factory, Ginger and co embark on a risky rescue mission.