Aardman Animations is currently in the pre-production phase for Chicken Run 2. The sequel was officially announced last April by the animation studio. The original movie hit theaters in 2000 and quickly grossed over $224 million, becoming the highest-grossing stop motion animated movie in history. It's been nearly 20 years and fans of the first installment have been waiting for a new update since last year. Thankfully, the work is being done and the chickens are being built.

Will Becher, co-director of A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, was the one to break the Chicken Run 2 news. Becher says the model room at Aardman is now "overrun with chickens" now that work has begun on the long-awaited sequel. "Well, all I can tell you is that there were a lot of chickens being made towards the end of our film," reveals Becher after getting asked about the aforementioned chickens. Becher had this to say about Chicken Run 2.

"We have a model-making team and, at one point, it was just full of sheep, but slowly over the course of the following weeks it became overrun with chickens... So there is definitely an intention there and it was announced they are in pre-production on a sequel."

A release date for Chicken Run 2 has yet to be announced. ParaNorman's Sam Fell will direct the sequel with Shaun the Sheep's Paul Kewley producing. Aardman co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton are executive producing. The first installment was directed by Lord and Nick Park, who created Wallace and Gromit, but it does not look like Park is attached to the project at this time, though that could change since this information was revealed in April 2018.

Original writers Karey Kirkpatrick and John O'Farrell have reunited to write the Chicken Run 2 screenplay. The original movie was Aardman's first feature-length project and it put the stop-motion animation studio on the map. The movie focuses on a group of chickens who are attempting to escape certain death at the hands of an evil farmer. Fans have been waiting years for this sequel and even launched an online petition to get the movie made. Now, the pressure is on.

Aardman Animations founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton decided last year to transfer ownership to their employees in an effort to keep the studio independent. The company was founded in 1972 and the duo have worked hard to make sure that everything that comes out is of the utmost quality. "It's not a business to us, it's everything, it's our statement to the world", said Lord and Sproxton. They continued by saying, "Having done that for so many years, the last thing we wanted to do was to just flog it off to someone." Giving the company to the employees assures that their vision will keep on going after they leave. The Chicken Run 2 news was first reported by Flickering Myth.