It’s been a rather slow week in animation, but thankfully USA Today saved the week and gave us some juicy info and photos of Reel FX’s upcoming November film Free Birds.
Free Birds follows two turkeys–Reggie and Jake–as they travel back and time to change Thanksgiving’s famous poultry main course forever. Reggie, played by Owen Wilson, is a recently presidentially pardoned turkey who has been exiled by his flock. So to pass the time, he wastes his days at Camp David gorging on pizza and watching telenovelas. Jake, played by Woody Harrelson, is the president (and only member) of the Turkeys Liberation Front and enlists Jake to hijack a time machine in order to travel back in time to save turkeys from becoming Thanksgiving’s main course.
Once the two birds have landed back in pilgrim times, they meet other wild turkeys living underground in fear, including one smart, sarcastic she-turkey Jenny played by Amy Poehler.
Apparently, Wilson and Harrelson have been friends since the early 1990s and have been looking for a project to do together for years. Finally, Free Birds fit the bill and their friendship added to some great chemistry to the film. Director Jimmy Hayward commented on this saying, “It’s a cool dynamic in the movie. There’s a genuineness to it that’s really awesome.”
Turkeys Free Birds may not be the best film of the year (especially with Frozen being released the following week); however, it still seems like it could be a decent, funny film. The two stills that were released (see below) aren’t anything special, but if the story is solid, then it will still be worth seeing.
Free Birds hits theatres just in time for the Thanksgiving feasts on November 1, 2013. The big question is: will it be such a big hit that people will shun turkey dinners this holiday season? Probably not, but it’ll still be fun to see the turkeys try.
