I attended an event
called the LA AppShow last night here in Santa Monica, CA, and I saw seven demos of various apps that are seeing significant success on the App Store. Matt McMahon from 20th Century Fox was there, and while his company didn't publish the actual app in question, he's certainly seen plenty of success; he worked closely with Rovio on
the creation of Angry Birds Rio, the movie tie-in that has nabbed 20 million downloads on the App Store in just 20 days of release, and has helped send the Rio animated movie to number one at the box office.
McMahon didn't talk about the actual development of Angry Birds Rio -- most of the technical work was left to Rovio, who McMahon called the "best in breed" on the App Store. But McMahon and his company did make an interesting decision, and that was to pin a large arm of their marketing for a huge movie on a little company from Finland with a popular app about birds and pigs.
"We knew Rovio was going to make a great game," says McMahon. He cites Rovio's longtime mobile experience and subsequent success with Angry Birds as the reason he didn't have a problem connecting up with them for the game. But the more interesting decision was choosing to marry the two universes, rather than just contracting out for a licensed Rio game. "We wanted to make this feel like a legitimate product," says McMahon, rather than just a grab for cash and marketing.
To do that, 20th Century Fox and Rovio set out from the start to really make the two properties intertwine, creating a whole story and even commissioning art and video describing how these two sets of characters came together. During his presentation, McMahon showed off two trailers,
one in the Angry Birds style, and another by Fox Animation that put the Angry Birds in the Rio world. "We were very respectful of what they've done," he said of Fox's use of Rovio's product. "We wanted it to feel authentic."
