Fergal Reilly was born on July 12, 1982, in Ardee, Ireland. At the age of nineteen, he moved to the United States and began his career at the Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles and Dale Baer Animation as an animator and story board artist.
Reilly's early work included being a story artist on the Warner Brothers animated and hybrid movies The Iron Giant, Space Jam, and Osmosis Jones. He also worked on Stuart Little and The Haunted Mansion, creating storyboards and concept art.
In 2002, Reilly helped visualize the action set pieces for Spider-Man 2, including the train battle between Spider-Man and Doc Ock. He later joined Sony Pictures' new animation division, where he spent 10 years as a story artist and story supervisor, helping develop projects for their family entertainment slate.
Reilly also worked with Jon Favreau and Richard Linklater as a story supervisor on special projects. In 2011, he was slated to direct a film adaptation of The Familiars, but the project was cancelled.
In 2012, Reilly was recognized by the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) as one of the most influential Irish Americans in the worlds of entertainment and technology. He made his feature film directing debut in 2016 with The Angry Birds Movie, which he co-directed with Clay Kaytis for Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The film was based on the Rovio Entertainment's video game Angry Birds and was released in the United States on May 20, 2016. The movie opened at number one in over 50 countries and the US, toppling Marvel's Captain America: Civil War off the top spot and setting records for May. It was Sony's top-grossing blockbuster of 2016 at the box office, grossing $353 million on a $73 million budget.
In 2019, it was announced that Reilly would direct Pete and Goat, an R-rated, live-action dramedy. In September 2020, Variety announced that he would direct an adaptation of the New York Times best seller Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles for DreamWorks.
Reilly is an alumnus of Gormanston College, where he drew comics, cartoons, and caricatures in lieu of formal art classes. He attended the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, where he initially studied graphic design but later switched to animation.
