In 1991, Peter Keefe and World Events Productions acquired the rights to the 1990 Danish animated film Fuglekrigen i Kanøfleskoven (ENG: War of the Birds) for an English language release. Garrett Fredrickson, who was initially asked to produce the dub, but was unable to due to working on LA's Biggest Con, wrote the English script while the songs were translated and rewritten by William Finn, the English version also carried some new pieces of music composed by J. Peter Robinson in tandem with some of Fuzzy's pieces. Unlike many theatrically released English dubs of non-anime films, the film was released almost entirely uncut, with only a small amount of edits done so the movie could secure a PG rating from the MPAA.
Due to Garrett Fredrickson's involvement as a writer, Carl Andy voiced one of the two Blackbirds in the film and Jonathan Winters also signed on as the voice of Walter, while the rest of the voices were done by television and anime voice actors. The English language version was released by Island Pictures on January 17, 1992, only grossing $3.1 million against a budget of $2.4 Million and received mildly positive reviews from critics. Warner Home Video (who coincidentally released the VHS of the original movie in Norway, France and Germany) initially secured the home video rights via a deal with Island Pictures, but the rights were assumed by PolyGram Video when they bought the latter company in 1994. As of today, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer owns the film's rights due to their ownership of the pre-1996 PolyGram Films library.
Voices[]
- Elijah Wood as Oliver
- Zooey Deschanel as Olivia
- Kath Soucie as Olivia's singing voice
- Ned Beatty as Walter
- Debra Jo Rupp as Betty
- Robert Sean Leonard as Frederik
- Andy Daly as Ingolf
- John Hurt as Fagin
- Megan Mullally as Fagin's Dove
- Patrick McGoohan as Armstrong
- B.J. Ward and Carl Andy as The Blackbirds
Additional Voices[]
- Neil Ross
- B.J. Ward
- Will Ryan
- Frank Welker
- Lara Cody
- Kath Soucie
Home Video releases[]
- 1992 Warner Home Video VHS/Laserdisc
- 1995 PolyGram Video VHS
- 1998 PolyGram Video DVD
- 2007 MGM/Fox DVD
- 2019 Olive Films DVD/Blu-Ray (Under license from MGM)