The year was 2000. Aardman Animations had become THE stop-motion animation company through the international success of their Wallace and Gromit shorts. But they were about to launch their riskiest venture yet, something much bigger than 30-minute tales of screwball inventors or Chevron Car commercials. Their first full-length feature, produced in collaboration with Dreamworks, was about to hit theaters. Could they prove they were more than a one-trick pony?

They proved it and then some. Chicken Run was one of the most popular animated films of the year, grossing more than $100 million in North America and $225 million worldwide. Critics loved the film and audiences ate it up like hens at a feed. Roger Ebert called Chicken Run “magical” and said “this is a movie that uses animals as surrogates for our hopes and fears, and as the chickens run through one failed escape attempt after another, the charm of the movie wins us over.”

If you missed your chance to see Chicken Run at the dawn of this century (or…gulp…you weren’t even alive; shame on you for making me feel old by existing), Dreamworks and Universal have announced a limited theatrical re-release is happening next month. On November 9 and November 12, the chickens’ Great Escape will be projected across the country once more. Check your local listings for the showing nearest you.

Chicken Run is, at its heart, a prison escape caper but with birds. Ginger and her friends are stuck behind the wire fencing of the Tweedy Chicken Farm and, being chickens, lack the ability to fly to get out of there. That’s when, somehow, a “flying” rooster appears who claims to be their ticket to freedom. Rocky turns out to be full of hot air, but he gives the hens the motivation they needed to find a way to flee the farm before the villainous owner, Mrs. Tweedy, was able to turn them all into pies.

In 2020 Aardman announced a follow-up, Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget, was being produced through Netflix. The sequel showed up on the service in 2023, but don’t wait around for a screening of that one…it’s Netflix we’re talking about.

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