Peppa Pig is set for a big-screen moment as part of her birthday celebrations. A two-part special featuring new characters will play alongside never-seen-before episodes of “Peppa Pig” in British cinemas as part of next year’s 15th anniversary celebrations of the smash-hit preschool property. “Peppa Pig: Festival of Fun” will launch theatrically in the U.K. in the spring of 2019.
While younger fans may be used to watching several short episodes of their favorite shows back-to-back, extending preschool TV to cinema is challenging. The producer of Peppa, eOne-owned Astley Baker Davies, has decided to show multiple new episodes of the show in their original five-minute form. A similar format was employed with “Peppa Pig My First Cinema Experience” in 2017, which took in £3.7 million ($4.7 million) at the U.K. box office.
The “Festival of Fun” episodes will see the Peppa characters dance in the mud at a children’s festival, celebrate Grandpa Pig’s birthday, and go to the cinema to see Super Potato’s big movie. They will be connected to interactive elements that ask the audience to play and sing along. The two-part special will feature new locations and characters. There will be 10 episodes in all in the one-hour show.
“Peppa Pig” plays on Viacom’s Channel 5 Milkshake and Nick Jr. in the U.K. No date has been set yet for the new “Festival of Fun” episodes to run on TV, but the expectation is that they will launch next fall. A DVD and download release will have the new installments as well as the interactive content.
The animated show is one of eOne’s key properties. Last year it announced that 117 new episodes were entering production, which will start airing next year and take the total episode count to 381.