German Video Game Hit 'Moorhuhn' to Get Movie Makeover

COLOGNE, Germany - A primitive German shoot-em-up video game, called Moorhuhn locally and Crazy Chicken internationally, is to get a movie makeover. Douglas Welbat, who co-produced local comedy hit The 7 Dwarves (2004), has teamed up with his brother Daniel to develop a big screen version of the casual game. The brothers have received $55,000 (€45,000) in script development funding from Germany's federal film board, the FFA.

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Originally designed by Dutch studio Witan an advertisement for Johnny Walker whiskey, the Moorhuhn game became a massive success after it was illicitly pirated online. An official, legal version of the game sold strongly across German-speaking Europe and spawned more than 30 different games as well as merchandising spin-offs, a comic book, an animated TV series and even a comedy single on the German music charts.

There have been several previous attempts to turn Moorhuhn into a movie but none so far succeeded in translating the rather plot-less game into a full-length feature.