‘Chickenhare And The Hamster of Darkness’ Will Release In 2022

Sony Pictures International Productions will release Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness later this year.

Here’s the trailer:

The film is from Brussel’s Nwave Pictures, a prolific producer of cg features whose titles include The Son of Bigfoot franchise and The Queen’s Corgi. Chickenhare has a €20m-€25m ($24m-$30m), making it the most expensive Nwave production to date.

Ben Stassen and Benjamin Mousquet are directing Chickenhare from a script by David Collard (Family Guy). The concept is based on a short-live graphic novel series by Chris Grine that was originally published by Dark Horse in the 2000s.

Sony Pictures Animation initially attempted to develop the property around 2011, but the film never made it out of development. Stassen told Screen Daily that he uncovered the idea in Sony’s archives: “We stumbled on a script that [Sony] had. Studios develop a lot of films. Some end up being great later on but are not produced at the studio itself. We read it, we loved it and we asked Sony – who had put it on hold – if we could take over. They said yes.”

The film will launch in a number of European countries, as well as South Africa, later this year. No U.S. distributor is set.