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
Theatrical presentations
Plays	Ice Age Live! A Mammoth Adventure
Games
Video games	Ice Age Ice Age: The Meltdown Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Ice Age Village Ice Age: Continental Drift – Arctic Games Ice Age Online
Audio
Soundtracks	Ice Age Ice Age: The Meltdown Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Ice Age: Continental Drift

The Ice Age franchise 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. Four films have been released in the series thus far, Ice Age in 2002, Ice Age: The Meltdown in 2006, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 2009 and Ice Age: Continental Drift in 2012.^[1] A fifth film, titled Ice Age: Collision Course, is set to be released in 2016. The series follows a group of mammals surviving the Paleolithic ice age.

Films

Ice Age (2002)

Sid, a sloth who never stops talking is left behind sleeping while everyone else begins the journey to the south. Awaking, 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 off 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.

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. When a water park begins to form, 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 3 days to make it or die. Manny is having trouble facing 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 having this new mammoth with them, may not be as bad as Manny makes it out to be while they try to escape the oncoming and continually threatening flood. During their journey, Scrat the sabre-toothed squirrel has his own adventures that eventually leads to something else entirely.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)

Life begins to change for Manny and his friends: Scrat is still on the hunt to hold onto his beloved acorn, while finding a possible romance in a female sabre-toothed squirrel named Scratte. Manny and Ellie, having since become an item, are expecting a baby, which leaves Manny anxious to ensure that everything is perfect for when his baby arrives. Diego is fed up with being treated like a house-cat and ponders the notion that he is becoming too laid-back. Sid becomes jealous of Manny and Ellie and begins to wish for a family of his own, and so steals some dinosaur eggs which leads to Sid ending up in a strange underground world where his herd must rescue him, while dodging dinosaurs and facing danger left and right, and meeting up with an insane one-eyed weasel known as Buck who hunts dinosaurs intently.

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 a few years after the events of the third film, with Peaches in her teenage years. Scrat's never-ending pursuit of acorns has world-changing consequences, separating Manny, Sid and Diego from the rest, forcing them to stand up to a pirate gang, led by Captain Gutt.

Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)

On December 20, 2013, 20th Century Fox scheduled Ice Age 5 for July 15, 2016.^[2] A promotional poster, shown in June 2015, at the Licensing Expo, revealed the film's full title: Ice Age: Collision Course.^[3] In August 2015, the film was postponed by one week to July 22, 2016, to avoid competition with Ghostbusters, La La Land and The Lake, all scheduled for July 15.^[4] Denis Leary, Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lopez and Chris Wedge^[5] are set to reprise their roles,^[6] while Mike Thurmeier and Galen T. Chu will direct the film.^[4] New additions to the cast include Jesse Tyler Ferguson (as Shangri Llama), Adam DeVine, Nick Offerman, Max Greenfield, Stephanie Beatriz, Melissa Rauch, Carlos Ponce, Michael Strahan, Jessie J and Neil deGrasse Tyson (as Neil deBuck Weasel).^[6] In the film, a cosmic event threatens the world, forcing the animals to leave their homes. On their journey, they wonder into an exotic place, led by its spiritual leader Shangri Llama.^[6]

Short films

Gone Nutty

Gone Nutty is a 2002 animated short film, directed by Carlos Saldanha, and originally released on the Ice Age DVD.^[7] 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.^[8]

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.^[9] 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.^[10]

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.^[11] 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 is a 26-minute TV special that aired on FOX on November 24, 2011,^[12] and was released on Blu-ray and DVD on November 26, 2011.^[13] The special was directed by Karen Disher, and it features all the regular voices: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, Josh Peck, Seann William Scott, and Chris Wedge. The new cast includes Billy Gardell as Santa, Ciara Bravo as Peaches, T.J. Miller as Prancer, and Judah Friedlander as Head Mini-sloth.

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.^[14]

Cast and crew

Cast

Crew

Reception

Box office performance

All four films, produced on a total budget of $324 million, have grossed over $2.8 billion worldwide,^[15] making Ice Age the 13th highest-grossing franchise of all time, and the second highest-grossing animated franchise worldwide behind Shrek.^[16] Each film of the series was the highest-grossing animated film of the film's release year, and among the eight highest-grossing films of the film's release year.^{[17][18][19][20]}

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,^[36] and on April 24, 2013, to Windows Phone.^[37] 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.^[38]
• Ice Age Online was a free-to-play browser-based adventure platform game produced by Bigpoint Games for its gaming portal.^[39] 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.^[39]
• 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.^[40]

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.^[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 plant to visit more than 30 countries in its five-year world-wide tour.^[41]

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.^[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] build 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