Looking to Break Into Hollywood, Rovio Adds Former Chairman of Marvel as an Advisor
Angry Birds-maker Rovio Mobile has been quite forward with its ambitions to branch out beyond gaming into books, movies and other types of entertainment.
So it should be no surprise that the Finnish gaming company picked up the former chairman of Marvel Studios David Maisel to help guide the company into film-making.
Given that Jim Breyer, one of the partners at Rovio’s venture investor Accel Partners, once served on the board of Marvel, we wouldn’t be surprised if he made the intro. Maisel was responsible for launching Marvel Studios, which went on to create films like Iron Man and Thor, and for the $4 billion sale of the company to Disney.
Maisel will serve as an executive producer for future Angry Birds films. One other asset that should help with Rovio with its ambitions is Kombo, the Finnish animation studio the company recently acquired. Kombo had been producing Angry Birds-themed shorts along with doing contract work for other companies up until the acquisition. Now it will be doing exclusively Rovio-commissioned work. With the combination of these two moves, perhaps a feature-length animated film won’t be too far off in the future.
Angry Birds 2 from Kombo on Vimeo.
June 27th, 2011 at 10:34 pm
[...] Maisel will serve as an executive producer for future Angry Birds films. One other asset that should help with Rovio with its ambitions is Kombo, the Finnish animation studio the company recently acquired. Kombo had been producing Angry Birds-themed shorts along with doing contract work for other companies up until the acquisition. Now it will be doing exclusively Rovio-commissioned work. With the combination of these two moves, perhaps a feature-length animated film won’t be too far off in the future.（source:insidemobileapps） [...]
July 8th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
[...] Birds Film Is Real — Rovio Mobile’s recently hired, former Marvel Studios chairman David Maisel has confirmed, in an interview with Variety, that an [...]
August 22nd, 2011 at 6:19 pm
[...] Angry Birds feature-length animated film or TV series through production. Rovio recently hired the former chairman of Marvel Studios David Maisel to be a special advisor and it acquired a Finnish animation studio Kombo, that had created a very high-quality Angry Birds [...]
October 26th, 2011 at 6:49 pm
[...] from each other. Rovio Mobile has a beloved brand in Angry Birds and merchandising tentacles reaching out into books, movies and plush toys. But it doesn’t have a second franchise and it hasn’t gone anywhere near maximizing the [...]
February 15th, 2012 at 2:16 pm
[...] Mooney will be helping the company turn its popular Talking Friends series of apps — which now boasts 90 million monthly active users and 300 million downloads — into an entertainment franchise that may include films, books and music. It’s a route that mobile gaming peer Rovio Mobile, the maker of Angry Birds, has gone down in bringing advisory talent like former Marvel chairman David Maisel. [...]