Raving Rabbids feature-length film: Ubisoft and Sony Pictures set to helm

It would appear that the little creatures known as Rabbids – sourced from the Rayman video game series and readied for the public as their own series by Ubisoft – have secured themselves a full-length feature film deal with Sony Pictures. This film has Jean-Julien Baronnet, Executive Director, Ubisoft Motion Pictures, and Hannah Minghella, president of Production for Columbia Pictures, speaking up on the deal, letting it be known that Columbia will be working on the picture as well. This release comes after the collaborative effort between Ubisoft Motion Pictures, France Television, and Nickelodeon called "Rabbids Invasion", a television show out right this minute.

These little guys known as Rabbids have already shown themselves to be able to capture the imaginations of not only gamers, but of kids and adults watching daytime television as well. With a shown on Nickelodeon in both the United States and in France, this next title is likely to take on a built-in audience the likes of which aren't often available to a new movie series.

According to Ubisoft, the Rabbids Invasion TV series has already been seen "more than 165 million times in five months", suggesting that with each episode pulls in an average of two million viewers apiece. And that's only inside the USA.

Ubisoft is no stranger to spinning off particularly powerful bits of their games into stand-alone titles. With Rayman they spun-off the Raving Rabbids crew, and from a Rabbids game came the franchise Just Dance. One inside the other, inside the other. Now they're moving forward with a film – and likely a film series at that.

"Sony Pictures has tremendous experience developing hybrid live-action-and-animated blockbusters for audiences around the world, which makes them a natural fit for what we want to achieve with a Rabbids film.

This deal deepens our partnership with Sony Pictures and highlights our holistic approach to bringing Ubisoft's brands to new audiences while still maintaining the brands' creative integrity." – Jean-Julien Baronnet, Executive Director, Ubisoft Motion Pictures

At this time there's no word on when the film will be produced or released, but we must assume that they'll be finishing up work on Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed well before this third title. The Ubisoft Motion Pictures crew is going big – sooner than later!