Corona | Coming Attractions

The man who helped develop Iron Man from a comic book superhero to a billion dollar film franchise is now starting to put together the framework for a movie based on Angry Birds, the immensly popular social networking video game. His name is David Maisel, and he's just been hired as a special advisor by Rovio, the company that owns Angry Birds, to find the right way to adapt the game into a feature film.

Before you question the rationale behind turning a video game with as thin a storyline as the one in Angry Birds into a movie, look no further than Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movie series. The four Pirates movies have made for Disney over $3.4 billion dollars worldwide, not to mention the video games, costumes, clothing and extra trips families have taken to enjoy the Disneyland ride which spawned it all. Angry Birds has sold over 12 million copies since it debuted on Apple's iTunes store in 2009 and has since spun off into the real world with pillows, trinkets and other collectibles.

But let's get back to David Maisel and what he's doing for his new employers. Before Maisel left Marvel Studios, he helped broker the deal between that company and Walt Disney, a transaction that was worth $4 billion dollars. Now that Maisel has accepted a position at Rovio, his principal task is to find a way to take the Angry Birds IP and find the right creative talent to shape it into a blockbuster that audiences worldwide will want to pay and see. To begin that process, Maisel has begun meeting with undisclosed directors and writers and hear what their take is on an Angry Birds movie.

Rovio also has plans to grow outward as a company and perhaps create other properties that could become movies. Since they already have the game component of an overall marketing strategy perfected, what has to happen now is to see what new ideas Rovio's team members can hatch and if they will need the help of a Hollywood studio to bring them to the silver screen. With Maisel's connections, that won't be a problem.

If you've never played Angry Birds you're likely wondering what all the excitement is about, right? Well, imagine having a slingslot where you fire birds into the stone castles that green pigs have built. That's it. What you're not seeing is how addictive playing Angry Birds can be. I would recommend that you download the trial copy to see it in action for yourself but then I would be responsible for another Angry Birds addict into the world.