Well it seems Hollywood has re-kindled its interest in adapting video games into movies.  Maybe that’s due to the success of Wreck-It Ralph or maybe it’s just because of the obscene amounts of money video games are bringing in these days, but either way they’ve turned their eye in that direction.  Earlier this summer we had the abysmal Adam Sandler vehicle Pixels, a couple of weeks ago it was another crack at a Hitman movie, and coming down the pipe we’ve got a Warcraft movie, an Assassin’s Creed movie, and an…Angry Birds movie?

When you think about it, a game with very little narrative structure like Angry Birds is probably the best option for a movie adaptation.  It doesn’t need to cram 30-60 hours worth of game lore into a couple hours, and its gameplay is simplistic enough to be easily represented without having to derail whatever story the movie wants to tell.

Both the recently released and the original Hitman movies ran into that problem because they wanted to be action movies, and while you can run around gunning people down and doing action movie stuff in Hitman games, you’re usually discouraged from drawing attention to yourself that way.  A truly representative Hitman movie would actually consist of an hour and a half of the main character watching guards walk back and forth and then a final half hour of him creeping past them to quickly strangle the bad guy before creeping right back out.  So the movies are less Hitman and more Mission: Impossible.

Angry Birds obviously doesn’t have that problem.  They’re free to run with this prequel story so long as an angry bird gets launched into something to kill a pig at some point.  Plus the game has been downloaded a billion times (no, that’s not hyperbole), which makes for a rather large potential audience, and with all the cartoon animals, it’ll easily lock up the family friendly demographics.

As for the trailer itself, so far it shows promise, though Josh Gad’s character already looks as irritating as the one he played in Pixels was.  No doubt Jazz will be excited to see this with Peter Dinklage in the cast list, not that he acquitted himself terribly well in Pixels either.  Hopefully Jason Sudeikis will do a better job of being a lead character than Adam Sandler and actually make this thing funny rather than grating.

The art design is wonderful though. They did a really great job of turning some 2D sprites into fully realized 3D characters and creating a fleshed out world in which they can play.  As an 80s kid, I have to give the trailer bonus points for using Michael Jackson’s Bad for background music too.

Fortunately by the time it comes out next May, we’ll all have had plenty of time to get angry enough about the Presidential election to empathize with the birds, so Angry Birds has that going for it too.  But what do you guys think? Are you interested in seeing this one or will Hollywood’s track record of abysmal video game movies keep you away?

For more of my takes on entertainment and politics, follow me on Twitter @crankytrex or check out my other writing at buzzpo.com.