Angry Birds: Casting Call

Christopher Nolan

If you own an iPhone, chances are you've played Angry Birds, the record-selling app about furious feathered friends taking their revenge on the greedy pigs who stole their eggs.

Chances are, you've lost hours and even days to the game, endlessly stroking and tapping your phone trying to perfect their kamikaze attacks.

Inevitably, a film version is now on the cards (opens in new tab) ...but who should play the birds? Why the angriest, craziest stars Hollywood can offer, of course. Read on to see who we're putting in the firing line.

But at the helm, the studios are going to need a calm head to prevail. Nolan is the obvious choice, not least because he can pull off the fiendishly perplexing narrative twists required to get those damn pigs.

Joe Pesci

Which Bird Would He Be? The small red bird.

Why? No special powers, but he's a mean little pecker - simple, direct, deadly.

Fire him up, and he can do enough damage to make you regret calling him a funny bird.

Baldwin brothers

Which Birds Would They Be? The blue birds, where one attacker cunningly separates into three smaller birds.

Why? This tag-team keeps the crazy in the family.

Alec is blue #1, shouting a blue streak as he demands that the birds always be closing.

But his initial attack is a decoy, and he unleashes his three younger, less talented siblings, who are bitter enough to inflict some serious hurt.

Nick Nolte

Which Bird Would He Be? The yellow kamikaze bird, who rockets at speed towards its target.

Why? The piledriver of the team.

Outwardly quite placid, a beach-bum past his prime...but cross him and he'll throw all of his considerable bulk into smashing the place down.

You really don't want to get in his way.

Christian Bale

Which Bird Would He Be? The black bomb bird, which as the name suggests has an explosive personality.

Why? Although seemingly inocuous in flight, push this one's buttons and he's liable to blow a fuse. Especially if something gets in his eye-line mid-flight.

Actually, scratch that. He always explodes.

Gary Busey

Which Bird Would He Be? The white bird who drops eggs onto the pigs and then zooms off into the stratosphere.

Why? This space cadet really shouldn't be entrusted with looking after the young'uns.

He's forever in the habit of chucking his offspring (played by Jake Busey) at the enemy. Anything to get out of doing the job himself, eh?

Mel Gibson

Which Bird Would He Be? The green boomerang bird.

Why? You mean, apart from him being an Aussie?

Because every time he appears, it looks like he's blown it and sailed way past the reasonable parameters expected of him.

And yet he'll always make a comeback, forcing those critical pigs to eat their words about him being past-it.

Russell Crowe

Which Bird Would He Be? The big fat red bird

Why? The daddy of the bunch, called in when all other avenues have been explored.

Simpler, more direct, deadliest - the big twist here is that, after all the tricksy stuff, brute force is the answer after all.

Also, Crowe's named after a bird, so it just fits, OK?

Tom Cruise

Which Bird Would He Be? Er, none of them. Cruise is playing the pigs.

Why? Chiefly, because they all share a strikingly familiar shit-eating grin when the birds fail to kill 'em.

Besides, role-playing every single one of the increasingly bruised and battered pigs will indulge both Cruise's propensity for uglifying those all-star looks and his post-Len Grossman fondness for prancing about in daft costumes.

Costumes? Oh, did we not mention - this isn't going to be a cartoon. We're thinking live action. Dress 'em all up in feathers.

That really will make them angry.