Aardman and Netflix have finally released the first trailer for the much awaited Chicken Run sequel, and we’re back in the company of our feathery pals Ginger, Rocky, and company, 23 years later.
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget takes off where the last film left off, with the brood escaping Tweedy’s Farm in daring manner.
When the perils of the human world suddenly come home to roost, everyone’s happiness is at stake.
According to the synopsis, ‘they’ll stop at nothing, even if it means jeopardising their own hard-won independence to defend chicken-kind.’
At the beginning of the trailer, Ginger (newly and rather controversially voiced by Thandiwe Newton) tells her friends, ‘Last time we escaped out of a chicken farm. We’re breaking in this time!’
While we witness the chickens being tossed over a concrete wall, launched out of a canon, and swimming underwater (of course) as part of their mission, it’s a delight to see Babs, Bunty, and Mac all present and correct with returning voice performers Jane Horrocks, Imelda Staunton, and Lynn Ferguson.
Horrocks also has a new line ready to go to complement her renowned phrase, ‘I don’t want to be a pie!’ I dislike gravy’.
As Ginger warns them all that it’s ‘go time’, Babs explains: ‘It’s fine, I went before we left’.
Nick and Fletcher, the wheeler-dealer mice, are also back (with new tones courtesy of Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays), cheerfully warning the chicks of all the horrors that await them.
However, in a surprise turn of events, as the music turns foreboding we see Ginger peak up a staircase from her hiding spot while a scarily foreboding voice says: ‘Now you’ve had the appetiser, time for the main course.’
It doesn’t take Ginger’s terrified ‘it’s her!’ to spot the reappearance of Chicken Run’s terrifying nemesis Mrs Tweedy, portrayed by original actor Miranda Richardson.
It’s reasonable to assume she may have been thought dead after being squashed by a barn door after surviving becoming trapped in the safety valve of her own pie machine, which then exploded.
That is certainly not the case, as she makes a dazzling comeback, displaying a fresh hairdo and style makeover that makes her appear even younger than she did in 2003.
‘Welcome to the future,’ she threatens in her soft Northern tones, dastardly gleam in her eye as she surveys what appears to be her new, polished metal lair.
We can only presume she’s transitioned from chicken pie to chicken nugget…
Other cast members include Zachary Levi, who replaces Mel Gibson as Rocky, David Bradley, who replaces the late Benjamin Whitrow as Fowler, Nick Mohammed as Dr Fry, and Bella Ramsey, who plays Ginger and Rocky’s daughter Molly.
Reginald Smith, a humourless businessman who pairs up with Mrs Tweedy, is also a newbie to the coop, played by Peter Serafinowicz.
The film will have its world premiere at the London Film Festival in September, followed by a Netflix release in December.
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget releases on Netflix on December 15.
