'Chicken Run' sequel set for Christmas on Netflix

FRANCE - A sequel to stop-motion favourite "Chicken Run" will be released by Netflix this Christmas, nearly a quarter-century after the original, it was announced Wednesday at the Annecy animation festival in France.

"Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget", from Aardman Studios, the British makers of "Wallace and Gromit", will be released on the streamer on December 15.

Netflix showed clips of the new film, which sees lead characters Ginger and Rocky safe on an island bird sanctuary, but with a daughter itching to see the world who finds herself trapped on a factory farm.

"It's a bit like a James Bond film but with chickens," summed up director Sam Fell at the festival in southeastern France.

The 2000 original, which worked as a spoof on wartime prison escape dramas, was the highest-grossing stop-motion animation of all time.

Also unveiled by Netflix was 3D film "Leo", due on November 21 and featuring the voice of Adam Sandler as a 74-year-old lizard who escapes from his classroom terrarium after learning he has only a year to live.

Other teasers included "Nimona", an innovative adaptation of a graphic novel by N.D. Stevenson.

Due for release on June 30, it follows a teenager capable of shapeshifting at will and her friendship with a knight wrongly accused of a crime, in a half-medieval, half-futuristic world.

Netflix also showed excerpts from an upcoming action series, "Blue Eye Samurai" about a swordsman seeking revenge in Edo period Japan - AFP