No one could accuse Rovio of failing to take advantage of the popularity still swelling around Angry Birds.

300 million downloads and counting, everything from speakers to baby clothes has found itself adorned with the franchise's colours.

But it's Angry Bird's debut on the big screen that's getting the biggest push from the studio.

"It's got to be everything that you'd expect from an Angry Birds movie as a fan of the game, plus so much more with surprises, innovative things, and twists," said recently appointed special advisor David Maisel, in an interview with IGN.

Surprise, surprise

Maisel joined the Finnish firm in June, having previously served as chairman at Marvel.

Indeed, it's his notable experience at the animation giant that's set to serve him in his role as executive producer on the first, and apparently not last, Angry Birds movie.

"Rovio is still very small in terms of the number of people and at Marvel there was a philosophy to involve everybody and say the brand of Iron Man, the brand of Thor, the brand of Captain America," added Maisel.

"With Rovio it's much easier because it's a smaller company and we're all focused on Angry Birds."

Short, sweet

In terms of what will be the first output, Maisel reckoned it would be short animations. 

"The idea right now is probably to do short form animation, two or three minute segments," he said.

"We view short form as potentially more creative and fun and those are things that can be distributed in non-traditional ways through online and virally, not just through cable networks like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network." 

As for an animated movie, he was more visionary. 

"We're going to try to keep it as tight as possible so that when you go into that theatre, it's an experience that you say, 'Wow, I didn't expect that'.

"It's a movie that happens to be coming from a game, so it has everything the fans would like to see and hear because the fans are already so broad age-wise and geographic wise."

Birdy brand

Surprises or not, however, it's what Angry Birds' splash at the flicks can do for the brand Maisel is most excited about.

Taking charge of a relatively fresh franchise like Angry Birds is a different experience to managing the sizeable licenses Marvel handled, said Maisel, each one weighed down by decades of history.

"With Angry Birds, I think the potential is even greater. The one thing that doesn't exist for Angry Birds that existed for Marvel is the fifty years of stories and mythology," he said.

"But I actually view that as an asset because we're able to create this mythology from scratch and have fun with it. Right now we have a very broad group from the company involved."

Rovio acquired Finnish animation studio Kombo to work on the movie back in June.

[source: IGN]