CANNES, France: Producers are laying plans for a new “Angry Birds” television series based on the cult video game, its distributors said Saturday.
The game, about a furious flock of multi-colored birds protecting their eggs from a tribe of green pigs, has already inspired a blockbuster movie franchise, a game show and a theme park in Qatar.
Now its Finnish creators Rovio are planning to expand its hit TV shorts into a full-length series based on characters from the game, which has been downloaded more than four billion times.
The series is likely to screen next year just as the second “Angry Birds” film rolls out in cinemas across the world.
The first “The Angry Birds Movie” grossed more than $350 million (302 million euros).
The news of the series aimed at 6- to 12-year-olds broke as the MIPJunior global children’s entertainment market opened in Cannes, France.
The British-based producers of the series, Cake, have not said how long the episodes will be.
Each episode of the existing shorts series “Angry Birds Toons,” and its two spin-offs, “Angry Birds Stella” and “Piggy Tales,” which star the birds’ nemesis, Bad Piggies, lasts only three minutes.
“Long-form content marks the obvious next step in extending the ‘Angry Birds’ brand on the small screen,” Cake’s CEO Tom van Waveren told Variety.
Cake signed a distribution deal with Rovio in June after which its managing director Ed Galton said, “We are looking forward to catapulting these iconic characters to television audiences around the world.”
New Angry Birds television series being hatched
New Angry Birds television series being hatched
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
