Ice Age (franchise)

Ice Age
Creator	Blue Sky Studios
Films and television
Films	Ice Age Ice Age: The Meltdown Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Ice Age: Continental Drift Ice Age: Collision Course
Short films	Gone Nutty No Time for Nuts Surviving Sid Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe
Television specials	Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Ice Age: The Great Egg-Scapade
Theatrical presentations
Plays	Ice Age Live! A Mammoth Adventure
Games
Video games	Ice Age Ice Age 2: The Meltdown Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Ice Age Village Ice Age: Continental Drift – Arctic Games Ice Age Online Ice Age Adventures Ice Age Avalanche Ice Age Hailstorm
Audio
Soundtracks	Ice Age Ice Age: The Meltdown Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Ice Age: Continental Drift

The Ice Age franchise is produced by Blue Sky Studios, a division of 20th Century Fox, and featuring the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, and Chris Wedge. Five films have been released in the series thus far with Ice Age in 2002, Ice Age: The Meltdown in 2006, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 2009, Ice Age: Continental Drift in 2012, and Ice Age: Collision Course in 2016. The series follows a group of mammals surviving the Paleolithic ice age. It has received some criticism for making no attempt to be scientifically accurate.^[1][2][3]

Films

Ice Age (2002)

Sid, a talkative sloth, is left behind by his family and the herds of mammals journeying to the south. He meets Manny, a mammoth who travels to the north, and decides to follow him. When a humans' camp is attacked by tigers, a woman takes her baby and jumps into a river and falls over a waterfall. Before she disappears, the baby is rescued by Manny and Sid. The two animals decide to search for the father and return the baby to him. Diego, one of the tigers that attacked the humans, comes also claiming the baby, and the trio form an uneasy alliance during their journey to the humans.

Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

Manny, Sid, and Diego are currently living in a large valley surrounded by an enormously high ice wall on all sides. However, the trio discovers that the ice wall is actually a wall that is barely holding a massive body of water that could flood the valley to nearly a mile underwater. A vulture tells them that there is a boat at the other end of the valley that may save them all, but they only have three days to reach it or die. Manny is also having trouble fearing the fact that he may be the last mammoth left. Along the way, they meet Ellie, a mammoth who thinks she is a possum, and her possum brothers Crash and Eddie. As they begin to travel together, Manny learns, with help from Diego and Sid, that he must move on from his past. During their journey, Scrat the sabre-toothed squirrel has his own adventure.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

Manny and Ellie are expecting their first child, meanwhile Scrat falls in love with fellow squirrel Scratte. Meanwhile Diego is anxious about settling down for a domestic life with Manny's new family. Sid begins to wish for a family of his own, and steals some dinosaur eggs which leads to Sid ending up in a strange underground world where his herd must rescue him. The herd also meets an insane one-eyed weasel known as Buck who aids them on their quest.

Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012)

The fourth film, Ice Age: Continental Drift, was released in 3-D on July 13, 2012. It was directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier—the first time without Carlos Saldanha, and beside the regular voices it features many new celebrities, including Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Lopez, Wanda Sykes, Drake and Nicki Minaj. The film takes place several years after the events of the third film, with Peaches now a teenager. Scrat's pursuit of acorns has world-changing consequences, separating Manny, Sid and Diego from the rest of their group. As they try to return home, they come into conflict with a pirate gang led by Captain Gutt.

Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)

Set after the events of Continental Drift, Scrat's pursuit of his elusive acorn catapults him outside of Earth aboard a UFO, where he accidentally sets off a series of cosmic events that transform and threaten the planet. To save themselves from peril, Manny, Sid, Diego, and the rest of the herd leave their home and reunite with Buck, who leads them on a journey to find a way to save the planet.

Possible future films

On the possibility of a potential sequel, in June 2016, Galen T. Chu, co-director of the film, stated that there were some ideas for the next installment.^[4]

Short films

Gone Nutty

Gone Nutty is a 2002 animated short film, directed by Carlos Saldanha, and originally released on the Ice Age DVD.^[5] The short features the character Scrat, who is yet again having troubles with collecting his beloved acorns. The film was nominated for the 2003 Academy Award for Animated Short Film.^[6]

No Time for Nuts

No Time for Nuts is a 2006 animated short film, directed by Chris Renaud and Mike Thurmeier, and it was originally released on the Ice Age: The Meltdown DVD.^[7] The short follows Scrat on a chase after his nut, which has been accidentally sent back in time by a frozen time machine. No Time for Nuts was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.^[8]

Surviving Sid

Surviving Sid is a 2008 animated short film, directed by Galen Tan Chu and Karen Disher. It was originally released on the Horton Hears a Who! DVD and Blu-ray.^[9] Unlike the first two Ice Age short films, Surviving Sid focuses on Sid, who incompetently "leads" a small group of camping children.

Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe

Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe is a 2015 animated short film. The short once again follows Scrat, who discovers a flying saucer frozen in a block of ice and accidentally powers it on and ends up creating the Solar System through a series of mishaps.

Television specials

Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas

In the middle of decorating for the holiday season, Sid accidentally destroys Manny's favourite decorations. Sid, convinced by Manny that he is now on Santa's naughty list, takes off with Crash, Eddie and Peaches for the North Pole to get back on the Santa's good side. When on the North Pole, Sid and his crew accidentally destroy Santa's Workshop. When Manny, Ellie and Diego, worried over Peaches's safety, arrive at the North Pole, they must come together and save Christmas.^[10]

Ice Age: The Great Egg-Scapade

The special centers on a harried prehistoric bird mom who entrusts her precious, soon-to-hatch egg to Sid. When she recommends him to her neighbors—a condor mother, Cholly Bear and Gladys Glypto—business booms at his new egg-sitting service.

However, dastardly pirate bunny Squint, who is seeking revenge on the herd, steals, camouflages and hides all the eggs. Once again, with Squint’s twin brother, Clint, assisting, Manny, Diego and the rest of the gang come to the rescue and take off on a daring mission that turns into the world’s first Easter egg hunt.

Cast

Feature films

Short films

Television specials

Crew

Reception

Box office performance

All five films, produced on a total budget of $429 million, have grossed over $3.2 billion worldwide, making Ice Age the 15th highest-grossing franchise of all time, and the second highest-grossing animated franchise worldwide behind Shrek.^[12] The first four films were the highest-grossing animated films in each year they were released, and among the eight highest-grossing films in their respective release years.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Critical and public response

Video games

• Ice Age was released in 2002 by Ubisoft for Game Boy Advance.
• Ice Age 2: The Meltdown was released in 2006 by Sierra Entertainment for Wii, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Xbox, and PC.
• Dawn of the Dinosaurs was released by Activision on June 30, 2009, for PC, Wii, DS, PS2, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
• Ice Age Village, a mobile video game, was released by Gameloft on April 5, 2012, to iPhone, iPad, and various Android devices,^[35] and on April 24, 2013, to Windows Phone.^[36] The game allows players to build a village while characters from the films set them goals. Player's can also visit their friend's villages, play mini games and watch videos.
• Ice Age: Continental Drift – Arctic Games was released by Activision on July 10, 2012, to Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, and Xbox 360.^[37]
• Ice Age Online was a free-to-play browser-based adventure platform game produced by Bigpoint Games for its gaming portal.^[38] Beta version of the game was launched on July 10, 2012, which put players in the role of Sid, who has to rescue lost members of his herd, separated by a volcanic eruption.^[38]
• Ice Age Adventures, a free-to-play game was released by Gameloft on August 7, 2014 for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android, Windows Phone and Windows 8.^[39]

Live show

Ice Age Live! A Mammoth Adventure is a live arena ice show that combines ice skating, aerial arts, puppetry and film, and tells a new story based on the first three Ice Age films.^[40] The plot begins with baby mammoth Peaches being kidnapped by an evil hawk-like creature called Shadow. Her father Manny sets off to rescue Peaches, accompanied by Sid and Diego. Their mission is successful, but on the way home they encounter avalanches and rockfalls, diverting them into a fantasy underground kingdom.^[41]

It is being produced by Stage Entertainment Touring Productions, and directed by Guy Caron and Michael Curry.^[42] The music and lyrics were written by Ella Louise Allaire and Martin Lord Ferguson.^[42] With the preview shows from October 19 to 21, 2012, in Cardiff, and from October 25 to 28, 2012, in Nottingham, A Mammoth Adventure officially premiered on November 2, 2012,^[42] during its three-day tour from November 1 to 3 at Wembley Arena in London.^[43] It continued in Germany in November 2012,^[44] with a plan to visit more than 30 countries in its five-year world-wide tour.^[40] At August 2016 Ice Age Live! A Mammoth Adventure concluded its world tour and was replaced in North America by "Ice Age On Ice". ^[45]

Themed land

Ice Age inspired rides and attractions will be featured at the first 20th Century Fox theme park, called 20th Century Fox World,^[46] to be built in 2016 as part of Malaysia-based Resorts World Genting.^[47]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ice Age (movie franchise).

• Official website