Mel Gibson: Will actor return as Rocky in Chicken Run 2?

Many are calling for him to be recast

Following the announcement of a sequel to Chicken Run, many were left wondering whether Mel Gibson would return to voice the lead character.

Gibson voiced Rocky in the Aardman stop-motion animated film, which was released in 2000.

While it’s unknown whether his co-stars, including Julia Sawlha, Imelda Staunton and Timothy Spall, will return to voice their characters, it’s being reported that Gibson will be recast.

According to TheWrap, plans to recast Gibson have been underway for a while, and had nothing to do with recent accusations made by Winona Ryder.

The Stranger Things actor claimed that Gibson made homophobic and anti-semitic statements at a party they both attended in 1995.

Gibson’s representative told The Independent: “This is 100 per cent untrue. She lied about it over a decade ago, when she talked to the press, and she’s lying about it now.”

Apparently, Chicken Run 2 begins with Ginger (Sawalha) hatching an egg with Rocky in a human-free chicken utopia. After their daughter, Molly, is born, the chickens face a new threat.

Aardman’s Peter Lord said: “We’ve discussed it so many times over the years and come up with various ideas but never quite found one we loved enough. But it was always in the back of our minds.”

He added: “I feel now we can make the Chicken Run sequel we want to, the one we really care about.”

The film is set to be directed by Sam Fell, who oversaw Flushed Away for the studio.

In 2006, Gibson was arrested for suspected drink-driving in Malibu and made anti-Semitic remarks to a policeman, which he later apologised for – explaining that the comments were “blurted out in a moment of insanity”.

He described his behaviour as “despicable”.

While the number of Hollywood films Gibson starred in diminished in the years since, Gibson earned a Best Director Oscar nomination for Hacksaw Ridge in 2017.