据venturebeat报道，热门手机游戏《愤怒的小鸟》（Angry Birds）目前正与美国20世纪福克斯电影公司进行合作，芬兰开发商Rovio将为后者的动画电影《Rio》开发一个特殊版本的游戏《Angry Birds Rio》，这也意味着《愤怒的小鸟》将从该电影巨额投入的市场营销活动中获益。

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据游戏邦了解，智能手机及平板电影将成为该电影的重要宣传阵地，动画电影《Rio》的制作班底正是《冰河世纪》的创作人员。Rovio公司董事长Peter Vesterbacka表示，尽管《愤怒的小鸟》角色形象并没有出现在该电影中，但电影的市场宣传活动必将有助于进一步提高《愤怒的小鸟》的知名度；Rovio已投入数月时间开发《Angry Birds Rio》这款游戏。

《愤怒的小鸟》将与20世纪福克斯电影一起通过电视广告及其他市场营销活动进行推广，电影中的小鸟角色Rio将出现在最新版本的《Angry Birds Rio》游戏中，该电影将于4月15日正式上映。

游戏邦获知，《Angry Birds Rio》游戏将于3月份左右发布，原版的愤怒小鸟角色将被绑架到一座魔法城市，它们一路躲过捕猎者的追踪，抢救出自己的同伴Blu和Jewel这两个《Rio》电影中的主角。据称该游戏时间长达数小时，是基于物理的拆除挑战任务，与电影情节颇有关联。该游戏将设置45个关卡，也有可能比《愤怒的小鸟》的更新版本含有更多关卡，支持在智能手机和平板电脑上运行。

Rio在游戏中是一个喜剧角色，一只外形罕见但一直在寻找同类的小鸟。游戏中的小鸟一直被捕猎者追杀，不得不逃回自己的巢穴。

Rovio公司还表示，有意制作《愤怒的小鸟》相关电视剧和电影，但如果是电影可能需要4年的筹备时间，不过现在有了《Rio》这个合作项目作为铺垫，Rovio应该不需要太久就能实现目标。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

New version of Angry Birds game will tie into animated movie Rio

The Angry Birds juggernaut continues. The mobile game has been downloaded tens of millions of times in the past year and it has broken into the collective consciousness of the world as a cultural phenomenon. Who doesn’t know the little cartoon birds with the angry eyebrows?

That success of the mobile game has enabled developer Rovio to parlay that success into the game’s first movie tie-in. Today, the company is announcing that it will do a special version of Angry Birds for the release of the animated movie Rio, dubbed Angry Birds Rio, as part of a deal with movie studio Twentieth Century Fox. That means that Angry Birds will benefit from the tens of millions of dollars of marketing money being spent on the movie’s promotion.

The collaboration is a unique one in that it has been executed quickly and it shows that the smartphone and tablet platforms are becoming vehicles for big marketing campaigns.

Peter Vesterbacka, known as Mighty Eagle at Rovio in Helsinki, said that the tie-in with the film Rio, a major release made by the creators of Ice Age, is a perfect fit for the Angry Birds franchise.

“We are like birds of a feather,” said Vesterbacka, who appeared on my panel this week at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich. “This gets us massive global visibility, as if we had made our own movie.”

Now Vestersbacka says that marketing of the Rio movie will essentially give Angry Birds the equivalent of a major movie tie-in, even though the Angry Birds characters are not part of the movie itself. Rovio has been working on the Rio game for months.

This all fits in with the brand expansion of Angry Birds. Rovio’s strategy is to take the hit game — where you slingshot Angry Bird characters at the fortresses of green pigs — and run with it.

“We think of how Mario has been around as a game character for more than 25 years and feel like we are just getting started,” Vesterbacka said.

The deal with Twentieth Century Fox means that the Angry Birds game will be promoted along with the movie in TV commercials and other marketing. And the bird character Rio will also appear in the new version of the Angry Birds game. The movie releases on April 15.

The Angry Birds Rio game will be released around the world in March. In the game, the original Angry Birds are kidnapped and taken to the magical city of Rio, where they escape their captors and set out to save their friends, Blu and Jewel, two rare macaws who are the stars of the Rio film. There will be hours of game play, physics-based demolition challenges, and twists related to the film. It will have 45 dedicated levels, or more than a usual update to the Angry Birds game. It will be available on smartphones and tablets.

Rio itself is a comedy about a rare bird’s search for another of his kind. They’re beset by would-be animal smugglers and have to escape back to their home. Vesterbacka said that his company is doing other deals as well. It has created Angry Birds plush toys and clothing. A board game is coming out in May.

And Rovio is still talking about doing television shows and movies based on Angry Birds. But he said it takes four years to make a movie. With the Rio deal, Rovio gets the benefit of movie promotion without having to wait a long time.（source:venturebeat）