At last, Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget has arrived on Netflix after a wait of twenty-three years. Stop-motion animation is a lengthy process, but this does seem a long time between movies. Fans of the comedy and style of Aardman Animation will no doubt be all over the release, and despite some controversy surrounding the casting, the film looks set to be a family favorite that will be well-watched over the holiday season. Will that success result in Chicken Run 3? Will we have to wait another two decades for a sequel? Do we strictly need one?
Let’s attempt to answer some of these essential questions.
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Will there be a Chicken Run 3?
At the time of writing, there is no confirmation that there will be a third outing for Rocky, Ginger, and the rest of the gang, and there could be a few reasons behind this.
First of all, Netflix has a definite process in place to assess whether further content is produced or not, and it may be too early for them to make the call on Chicken Run. The length of time that is required to make films such as these also has to be taken into account, so even if we do get some kind of good news, it could be a while before we see anything. It is worth noting that Aardman worked with Netflix Animation to bring us the second film so that collaboration would help move things along, so there is some hope that a third feature could appear. But if you waited twenty-three years for this sequel, you can hang on a bit longer for confirmation of the next one.
Why did it take so long to get Chicken Run 2?
Despite the lengthy process of making the movie, there were a lot of other factors that contributed to the delay in releasing Dawn of the Nugget.
One of the major hold-ups in production arrived when one of the studios in Bristol where the models and sets for the film were housed suffered a terrible fire, and all the models were lost. This meant that all the characters and props were lost, and the studio had to start again. With the second film requiring a lot more in the way of locations, it was a much bigger and more ambitious project, and these things take time to construct.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the good old UK weather would strike again, and a flood from an incredible amount of rainfall would once again provide problems for the studio, with a damaged roof and adverse weather causing further delays at the studio. Of course, once things did get moving, the pandemic hit, and everything had to stop again. Stop-motion animation requires lots of people moving the models, and with COVID rules very specific about how you handle things that others might handle, you can imagine the problems that this style of filmmaking would present.
It should also be noted that the incredibly detailed and exhaustive work required to make these movies just left the team behind the film exhausted after the first one, so there was no rush whatsoever to start another. Thinking about it, it’s a miracle we got the second film at all.
What could Chicken Run 3 be about?
In Chicken Run, the gang escapes from the farm, in the second film they have to break back into the farm, so I have no idea what the third one would be about, but in the capable hands of Aardman, I have no doubt that the writers will think of something, and the second film does kind of set up further adventures, and the film implies that breaking chickens out of a farm could be the next caper.
Do we need a Chicken Run 3?
No, of course, we don’t, but we would welcome it with open arms. It is hard not to love those darn clay chickens.
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