The Birds are Back with 'Chicken Run 2'

Co-founder Peter Lord has turned Aardman into an employee-owned studio. JOE KLAMAR / AFP
Co-founder Peter Lord has turned Aardman into an employee-owned studio. JOE KLAMAR / AFP
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The Birds are Back with 'Chicken Run 2'

Co-founder Peter Lord has turned Aardman into an employee-owned studio. JOE KLAMAR / AFP
Co-founder Peter Lord has turned Aardman into an employee-owned studio. JOE KLAMAR / AFP

A sequel to the hit animated film "Chicken Run" was inevitable, its makers told AFP, for the simple reason that chickens are just too funny.
"We don't exactly have a list but there's a clear understanding at Aardman that some animals are funny and some aren't," said Peter Lord, co-founder of the British studio behind such beloved stop-motion creations as "Wallace and Gromit" and "Shaun the Sheep".
"Chickens are fundamentally funny creatures, aren't they," Lord told AFP.
"But horses aren't. Sorry, horses, but you're just too beautiful to be funny."
"Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget" streams on Netflix from Friday, more than 20 years after the original hit about a group of chickens trying to break out of their farm.
This time, the task is reversed as heroes Ginger and Rocky must break into a nugget factory to rescue their headstrong daughter, voiced by "The Last of Us" breakout star Bella Ramsey.
"'Chickens' is just a funny word, too," said director Sam Fell.
"You can add it to anything -- 'The Great Escape' with chickens, 'Mission: Impossible' with chickens... it always works."
The new film does indeed take inspiration from the Tom Cruise franchise, as well as James Bond, as the chickens try to infiltrate a ludicrously over-the-top, high-tech nugget factory that resembles a Bond villain's lair.
It's all "spectacularly weird", promises Lord.
Are there any ideas that were too weird even for an Aardman film?
"There was a cock-fighting sub-plot at one point. It was a funny notion. I did a drawing of Rocky wearing Rocky Balboa's shorts. I thought it was funny, but it was a bit weird even for us," said Lord.
Employee-owned studio
As always, it has been painstaking work.
Each animator -- the film used up to 30 at a time -- can only shoot about four seconds per week.

"If we get two minutes done in a week it's a massive celebration," said Fell.
Animation technology has improved immensely since the original in 2000, but Aardman likes to keep the handmade feel and "build as much as we possibly can".
The exception was for scenes with lots of chickens at once, where they used computer effects to create the background poultry -- "otherwise, we'd still be filming it now", said Fell.
Asked what makes a good animator, he said they tend to be "patient and insular".
"At heart, they're actors, but they're very shy actors, and they'd rather do it quietly in a small space with a puppet, away from everybody else," he added.
One thing that helps create a sense of community at the Bristol-based studio is that it was recently turned into a trust owned by its employees.
"We could have sold it to some media giant and made a shed-load of money," said Lord. "But then what? They'd sell it on, and eventually the thing that is so precious to us would become a commodity for other people to asset strip."
"Chicken Run 2" was the first film made under the new arrangement, and Fell said the feeling was tangible.
"I did feel there was that spirit in the crew every day of pride, of showing what we can do and giving it to the world," he said.



Argentine Prosecutors Charge 3 People Linked to Death of Liam Payne

FILE PHOTO: A woman passes by a message written as a tribute to former One Direction singer Liam Payne, who was found dead after he fell from a third-floor hotel room balcony in Buenos Aires, in Manchester, Britain, October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman passes by a message written as a tribute to former One Direction singer Liam Payne, who was found dead after he fell from a third-floor hotel room balcony in Buenos Aires, in Manchester, Britain, October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
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Argentine Prosecutors Charge 3 People Linked to Death of Liam Payne

FILE PHOTO: A woman passes by a message written as a tribute to former One Direction singer Liam Payne, who was found dead after he fell from a third-floor hotel room balcony in Buenos Aires, in Manchester, Britain, October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman passes by a message written as a tribute to former One Direction singer Liam Payne, who was found dead after he fell from a third-floor hotel room balcony in Buenos Aires, in Manchester, Britain, October 21, 2024. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo

Three people have been charged in connection with the death of Liam Payne, a former member of musical group One Direction who died after falling from the balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires last month, Argentine prosecutors said Thursday.
Prosecutor Andrés Madrea charged the three suspects, whose identities were not revealed, with ​​the crimes of “abandonment of a person followed by death” and “supplying and facilitating the use of narcotics,” the prosecutor’s office said. Madrea also requested their arrest to judge Laura Bruniard, who ruled the three cannot leave the country, The Associated Press reported.
Payne fell from his room's balcony on the third floor of his hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Palermo, in the Argentine capital. His autopsy said he died from multiple injuries and external bleeding.
Prosecutors also said that Payne’s toxicological exams showed that his body had "traces of alcohol, cocaine and a prescribed antidepressant” in the moments before his death.
Investigators said hours after Payne’s death that he was by himself when he fell. But the prosecutors' office said Thursday that one of the people charged was often with the singer during his time in Buenos Aires. The second is a hotel staffer who allegedly gave Payne cocaine during his stay between Oct. 13 and 16. And the third is a drug dealer.
The charges in Payne’s case bear some resemblance to the US cases stemming from the death of “Friends” star Matthew Perry a year ago. The actor’s personal assistant and a longtime friend are among those charged with helping supply him with ketamine in the final months of his life, leading up to his overdose on the anesthetic.
Three young men were similarly charged in the opioid-overdose death of rapper Mac Miller in 2018.
Local authorities gathered, among other pieces of evidence, Payne's cell phone records, material for forensics and testimonies. They are yet to unlock the singer’s personal computer – which is damaged – and other devices that were seized.
Payne’s autopsy showed his injuries were neither caused by self-harm nor by physical intervention of others. The document also said that he did not have the reflex of protecting himself in the fall, which suggests he might have been unconscious.
Prosecutors in Argentina also ruled out the chances of Payne committing suicide.
One Direction was among the most successful boy bands of recent times. It announced an indefinite hiatus in 2016 and Payne — like his former bandmates Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and Louis Tomlinson — pursued a solo career.
The singer had posted on his Snapchat account that he traveled to Argentina to attend Horan’s concert in Buenos Aires on Oct. 2. He shared videos of himself dancing with his girlfriend, American influencer Kate Cassidy, and singing along in the stands. Cassidy had left Argentina after the show, but Payne stayed behind.