Plot
In the Pine Grove forest in Washington, Woody Woodpecker detects brothers Nate and Otis Grimes, two taxidermist poachers who attempt to capture and sell him for money, and causes them to tranquilize each other. In Seattle, Lance Walters, a real estate lawyer, gets fired, after a video of him claiming wildlife conservation is unprofitable goes viral. He tells his glamorous girlfriend, Vanessa, that he intends to build an investment home on a large piece of property located near the Canadian border, left to him by his grandfather. Lance's ex-wife Linda leaves their son Tommy with him and Vanessa, since she needs to care for her hospitalized father in Philadelphia.
At the Pine Grove forest, Lance, Tommy, and Vanessa meet park ranger Samantha Bartlett. As Lance and Vanessa unpack, Tommy goes into the forest for a walk. There, he discovers and befriends Woody, after he gives him peanut butter cookies. Woody visits the family at lunchtime, and eats almost all of the food. Lance tries to shoo Woody away, but he accidentally wrecks the table and hits Vanessa in the face with a broom. The next morning, construction on the investment home begins, prompting an angered Woody to constantly cause chaos at the site. Later, in a nearby town, Tommy befriends a young musician named Jill, who persuades him to join her band in the annual Firefly Festival. Tommy is then saved from two bullies by Woody.
As days pass, Lance grows more frustrated, because of Woody's constant annoyance, mischief, chaos, and destruction of his project, and he goes to confront Samantha at the ranger station. She reveals Woody is an endangered species known as the pileated red-crowned woodpecker, which was thought to be extinct for 100 years and Native Americans saw as a god of mischief and chaos. Lance continues with his work, but Vanessa leaves him after Woody blows up their RV with her inside. Lance tries to get Nate and Ottis, who secretly still plan to sell Woody, to get rid of him, but he keeps outwitting them. Samantha advises Lance to make peace with Woody. Lance attempts to surrender to Woody, by giving him cookies, Woody agrees to let him and the workers continue with their construction, as long as he is given food every day. Eventually, the investment home is completed, despite excessive payment and extended scheduling.
At the town's Firefly Festival, Tommy and Jill's drummer Lyle comes down with food poisoning, prompting Woody to take over using a homemade drum kit. The performance is a success, and Lance is delighted to hear that Woody gave Tommy support. Concluding that having humans around again isn't a bad thing, Woody heads back to the investment home and carves a mural above the fireplace. However, as he signs his name into the carving, he accidentally burns the house down, after hitting exposed wiring. Horrified by his mistake, he flies back to his tree. Thinking Woody was luring him into a false sense of security and furious that he would do this when he was just starting to like him, Lance calls Nate and Ottis, who cut down his tree and tase him unconscious. As they leave, Tommy castigates his father for his actions and runs away. He then forms a plan to rescue Woody and heads to Grimes' shack with Jill and Lyle, as the brothers try to sell Woody at an online black market auction. Lance finds the mural that Woody had created. Realizing his mistake, he enlists Samantha's help and they set out to find both Tommy and Woody, but the entire gang is captured by the brothers. As Nate aims a tranquilizer on Woody, Lance tilts his cage towards Woody's and frees him. After attacking the brothers, Woody chases them as they attempt to flee to the Canada border. He carves a hole in the middle of the bridge, and the brothers fall into the river below, where they later are stopped by the police, and having been fed up with Woody foiling their plans, willfully turn themselves in with Woody saying that its their turn to live in a cage.
Later, Lance apologizes to Woody for not knowing that the house fire was an accident and therefore replaces Woody's cut-down tree with a birdhouse. Woody accepts both the gift and the gang as his surrogate family.
Production
In November 2011, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment planned an animated Woody Woodpecker feature film. John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky ( King of the Hill ) were in talks to develop a story, [6] but in July 2013, Illumination canceled the project. [7]
In October 2013, Bill Kopp was hired by Universal and Illumination to direct an animated feature film with three interwoven stories. [8] The project was put on hold and then cancelled, as Chris Meledandri confirmed that its concept was too thin for an 85-minute film. [9]
In 2016, Universal 1440 Entertainment was filming a live-action/CGI hybrid Woody Woodpecker film, following the success of Alvin and the Chipmunks . [10] Director and co-writer Alex Zamm was in discussions with Universal executives to direct a Woody Woodpecker film, with co-writer William Robertson following their previous project The Little Rascals Save the Day . [11] He has also watched all 200 Woody Woodpecker cartoons, as preparation for the film. [12] For cost-effective reasons, it was agreed upon for the film to have a more singular approach with Woody Woodpecker being the one surreal element as a photorealistic character in the real world. [13] Filming began that June and ended later in July. Filming was done in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. [1] The primary audience in mind for the film was that of Brazil. [1] The cartoon has been broadcast in the country for, by 2017, 38 years, and the Brazilian newspaper Folha Vitória stated that the series was popular ("com ótima audiência"). [14] [15]
Release
The film was first released theatrically in Brazil (under the name of Pica-Pau: O Filme) on October 5, 2017. [1]
In the week of the premiere of the film, a person/people dressed in a costume of the character came to Brazil and visited several cities such as the capital Brasília, Manaus, Olinda, Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The highlight visit was when some scenes from the episode "Niagara Fools" were reproduced in the Iguaçu Falls. [16]
Woody Woodpecker was released in the United States and Canada on DVD, Digital HD, and Netflix on February 6, 2018 and on Blu-ray on September 4 the same year. [17] The film was launched on direct-to-video format in the United States and around the world on that day. [18] In the United Kingdom, it was distributed through British home video distributor Dazzler Media, under license from Universal.
