Squeaky-voiced app characters Talking Angela and Talking Tom Cat are set to become film stars, after developer Outfit7 struck a deal to turn its Talking Friends franchise into a movie.
The news came as the series of apps, which also includes Talking Ginger, Talking Ben and Talking Gina, reached the milestone of 2bn downloads since the first one was released in June 2010.
Outfit7 is already working on an animated TV show based on Talking Friends, with the characters already having proved popular on YouTube.
There, the official Talking Tom and Friends channel has nearly 940,000 subscribers and 305m video views so far, while a 10-episode web series made with Disney has notched up more than 329m views.
A separate music video produced with Disney, You Get Me, has been watched nearly 175m times, while Talking Tom and Talking Ginger have their own channels with more than 195m and 13m views respectively.
The 2bn app downloads milestone means Talking Friends is catching up with Angry Birds, which hit the same total late in 2013. They’re the two biggest new children’s brands to emerge from the apps industry, although both claim an all-ages audience.
Talking Friends reached 100m downloads by March 2011, then 360m a year later, according to figures released by Outfit7 at the time. The series reached 1bn downloads in June 2013, when the apps had 170m active monthly users.
By February 2014, Talking Friends’ downloads total was 1.5bn, while its active users had grown to 230m. The latter stat has not been updated alongside this week’s milestone, however.
“Two billion is an incredible triumph. We’re beyond proud that our Talking Tom and Friends cast of characters has brought so much joy, laughter and smiles to people across the globe,” said Outfit7’s chief executive Samo Login.
He will executive produce the Talking Friends film, which is being produced by Mythology Entertainment, whose co-founders have worked on movies including Black Swan, Zodiac, Avatar and The Amazing Spider-Man.
The movie and new milestone is positive news for Outfit7, after a troubling period early in 2014 when an internet hoax claiming its Talking Angela app was the front for a paedophile ring went viral on Facebook.
“Do not download the app Talking Angela. It is a hacker that is sitting behind a webcam, able to see you but you can’t see him. ‘Angela’ asks you very personal and perverted questions,” claimed one version of the hoax, which reached millions of parents through the social network.
“Obviously, it’s a hoax. I don’t know how it got started or how it got traction. These things just happen,” Login told The Guardian at the height of the scare in February. “We have millions of users every day using this app. Can you imagine, we’d need an army of paedophiles. It’s ridiculous.”
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