''Ice Age'' is a 2002 American animated
adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...
comedy film
The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...
produced by
Blue Sky Studios and distributed by
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...
. The film was directed by
Chris Wedge
John Christian Wedge (born March 20, 1957) is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is best known for being the lead animator of the sci-fi action film ''Tron'' (1982), co-founding the now defunct animation studio Blue Sky Studios ...
and co-directed by
Carlos Saldanha from a screenplay by
Michael Berg,
Michael J. Wilson, and
Peter Ackerman, based on a story by Wilson. It features the voices of
Ray Romano,
John Leguizamo,
Denis Leary,
Goran Višnjić, and
Jack Black
Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black (born August 28, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for roles in family and comedy films, in addition to his voice work in animated films. His awards include a Children's and Family Emmy ...
. Set during the days of the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
, the film centers around three main characters—Manny (Romano), a no-nonsense
woolly mammoth; Sid (Leguizamo), a loudmouthed
ground sloth
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. They varied widely in size with the largest, belonging to genera '' Lestodon'', ''Eremotherium'' and ''Megatherium'', being around the size of elephants. ...
; and Diego (Leary), a sardonic
smilodon—who come across a human baby and work together to return it to its tribe. Additionally, the film occasionally follows
Scrat, a speechless "saber-toothed squirrel" (Wedge), who is perpetually searching for a place in the ground to bury his acorn.
''Ice Age'' was originally intended as a
2D animated film developed by
Fox Animation Studios
Fox Animation Studios was an American animation studio owned by 20th Century Fox and located in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox Animation and was established by animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. It operated for six ...
, but eventually became the first full-length animated film for the newly reformed Blue Sky, which had been reshaped from a
VFX house to a computer animation studio. Focus shifted from making an action-adventure drama film to a more comedy-oriented one, and several writers, such as Berg and Ackerman, were brought on to bring out a wittier tone.
The film was released in the United States on March 15, 2002. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and was nominated at the
75th Academy Awards for
Best Animated Feature. It was a box office success and grossed over $383.2 million, making it the
eighth highest-grossing film of 2002 and the highest-grossing animated film of 2002. The film initiated
a franchise, being followed by several sequels, spin-offs, specials, shorts, and video games.
Plot
A herd of prehistoric animals are migrating south to avoid a forthcoming
ice age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
. Sid, a clumsy
ground sloth
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. They varied widely in size with the largest, belonging to genera '' Lestodon'', ''Eremotherium'' and ''Megatherium'', being around the size of elephants. ...
, is left behind by his family and personally chases the herd, but is attacked by an angry pair of
brontotheres after he ruins their meal. Sid is reluctantly rescued by Manny, a surly
woolly mammoth who did not migrate with the others. Sid insists upon following Manny, but the latter wishes to be alone and is frequently annoyed by Sid's outgoing demeanor.
Some time before these events, a human tribe hunted and killed half of a ''
Smilodon'' pack for their pelts. Soto, the leader of the surviving saber-toothed tigers, leads a raid on the human camp, intending to exact revenge by personally killing Roshan, the infant son of the chief. Soto has his lieutenant Diego bring the baby to Soto alive. Roshan's mother, however, flees with her son and leaps over a waterfall. Soto orders Diego to pursue Roshan and bring him back alive, threatening to kill him if he fails.
Sid and Manny encounter Roshan and his injured mother in the river at the bottom of the falls. The woman leaves the baby with them, but is washed away. Sid attempts to return the baby to the human settlement, but finds the camp deserted. Diego offers to take the baby off Sid and Manny's hands, but a mistrustful Manny orders Diego to track the humans for them instead. Diego complies, but that night, he secretly sends word back to Soto that he is bringing both the baby and a mammoth for the pack to eat.
After several misadventures and bonding moments during their adventure, the "herd" of three travels through an ice cave and discovers some human
cave paintings. Though Manny experiences a flashback to when his family was killed by human hunters, he has become deeply attached to Roshan. Diego, beginning to second-guess his mission, changes sides completely after Manny saves his life from a
lava flow
Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a Natural satellite, moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a Fissure vent, fractu ...
. He informs Sid and Manny of Soto's pack waiting to ambush them at
Half Peak. Though the pair remain skeptical, having learned they were set up, Diego successfully convinces them their only chance is to trust him.
Sid, Manny, and Diego plot to trick the pack of cats and escape. This initially works, but Soto and two others manage to corner Manny at a cliff edge. Diego jumps in to fight Soto and save Manny, and is severely injured in the process. Soto is thrown against an overhanging rock and is killed by falling
icicles, which prompts the rest of his pack to flee.
As Sid and Manny grieve for Diego, he convinces them to leave him and return the baby to the humans before the mountain passes fill with snow. Manny and Sid catch up to the humans and Roshan reunites with his father, who gifts Manny a shell and bead necklace. Diego, having survived his injuries, catches up just in time to say goodbye to Roshan, and the reunited trio, now best friends, head back south with the rest of the animals.
Cast
*
Ray Romano as
Manfred "Manny", a
woolly mammoth
*
John Leguizamo as
Sid, a
ground sloth
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. They varied widely in size with the largest, belonging to genera '' Lestodon'', ''Eremotherium'' and ''Megatherium'', being around the size of elephants. ...
*
Denis Leary as
Diego, a ''
Smilodon''
*
Goran Višnjić as Soto, a ''Smilodon''
*
Jack Black
Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black (born August 28, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for roles in family and comedy films, in addition to his voice work in animated films. His awards include a Children's and Family Emmy ...
as Zeke, a ''Smilodon''
*
Cedric the Entertainer
Cedric Antonio Kyles (born April 24, 1964), better known by his stage name Cedric the Entertainer, is an American stand-up comedian, actor and television host. He hosted BET's '' ComicView'' during the 1993–1994 season and '' Def Comedy Jam'' ...
as Carl, an ''
Embolotherium''
*
Stephen Root as Frank, a ''
Megacerops'' and father Start, a ''
Palaeotherium''
*
Diedrich Bader as Oscar, a ''Smilodon''
*
Alan Tudyk as Lenny, a ''
Homotherium
''Homotherium'' is an extinct genus of Homotherini, scimitar-toothed cat belonging to the extinct subfamily Machairodontinae that inhabited North America, Eurasia, and Africa, as well as possibly South America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene ...
''
*
Jane Krakowski and
Lorri Bagley as Rachel and Jennifer, respectively, a pair of female giant ground sloths
*
Chris Wedge
John Christian Wedge (born March 20, 1957) is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is best known for being the lead animator of the sci-fi action film ''Tron'' (1982), co-founding the now defunct animation studio Blue Sky Studios ...
as
Scrat, of a fictitious species of saber-toothed
squirrel
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae (), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrel ...
*
Tara Strong
Tara Lyn Strong (; born February 12, 1973) is a Canadian and American actress. She is known for her voice work in animation, websites, and video games. Strong's voice roles include animated series such as '' The Powerpuff Girls'', '' The Fair ...
as Roshan, a human infant.
He is never referred to by name in the film, instead being nicknamed "Pinky" by Manny
Production
Development
''Ice Age'' was originally pitched to
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...
in 1997 by producer Lori Forte.
The film, originally envisioned as a
traditionally animated movie with an action-oriented
comedy-drama
Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau dramedy) is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. In film, as well as scripted television series, serious dramatic subjects (such as death, il ...
tone, was intended to be developed by
Don Bluth and
Gary Goldman's
Fox Animation Studios
Fox Animation Studios was an American animation studio owned by 20th Century Fox and located in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox Animation and was established by animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. It operated for six ...
.
Around the same time,
Blue Sky Studios, a small
visual effects
Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of
a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production.
The integration of live-action footage and other live-action fo ...
studio in
White Plains, New York, was bought out by Fox and reshaped into a full-fledged
CG animation film studio. In light of this,
Fox Animation
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush").
Twelve spec ...
head
Chris Meledandri and executive producer Steve Bannerman approached Forte with the proposition of developing the film as a computer-animated movie, which Forte realized was "basically a no-brainer", according to her.
Michael J. Wilson, who had written and developed the film's original story treatments in conjunction with Forte, wrote the first draft for the script, and
Chris Wedge
John Christian Wedge (born March 20, 1957) is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is best known for being the lead animator of the sci-fi action film ''Tron'' (1982), co-founding the now defunct animation studio Blue Sky Studios ...
, a co-founder of Blue Sky, was brought on to the project as the director in late 1998.
Fox also opted for the movie to take a more comedy-oriented direction, and brought writer
Michael Berg to help emphasize a more comedic tone. After being hired, Berg reportedly told the studio that he couldn't write a film made for children, to which the studio responded, "Great! Just write a good story."
Story development began in spring 1999,
and official production on the film began in June 2000, one week after the closure of Fox Animation Studios.
150 employees were hired to work on the film,
and a budget of $58 million was granted by Fox.
Peter Ackerman was hired as a third writer for the film, and collaborated extensively with Berg for three years before the two eventually moved on from the project.
Jon Vitti and
Mike Reiss, both former writers for ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a Satire (film and television), satirical depiction of American life ...
'', were added later on after Berg and Ackerman left to further polish the script.
For research, the film's development team took several trips to the
Museum of Natural History early on in production in order to make sure that the film authentically felt like the
Ice Age
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
. Ultimately, the team translated the information that they had compiled in their research by stylizing it in order to fit with the film's story. A team of 32 animators went out and did research to figure out the movements of different animals; for instance, for the movement of Scrat, animators visited a park and observed local squirrels, taking note of their "twitchy" way of moving.
Writing and character development
Michael J. Wilson stated on his blog that his daughter Flora came up with the idea for an animal that was a mixture of both squirrel and rat, naming it Scrat, and that the animal was obsessed with pursuing his acorn. The plan to have Scrat talk was quickly dropped, as he worked better as a silent character for comedic effect. The name 'Scrat' is a combination of the words 'squirrel' and 'rat', as Scrat has characteristics of both species. Wedge has also called him "saber-toothed squirrel".
Scrat's opening adventure was inserted because, without it, the first real snow and ice sequence wouldn't take place until about 37 minutes into the film. This was the only role intended for Scrat, but he proved to be such a popular character with test audiences that he was given more scenes. The filmmakers made it so that many of the scenes with Scrat appear directly after dramatic moments in the film.
In a 2012 interview with
Jay Leno,
Denis Leary revealed that his character, Diego, originally died near the end of the film. However, it was reported that kids in the test audience burst into tears when his death was shown. Leary warned the producers that something like this would happen. When it was proven true, the scene was re-written to ensure Diego survived.
Originally, Sid was supposed to be a con-artist and a hustler, and there was a finished scene of the character conning some aardvark kids. His character was later changed to a talkative-clumsy sloth because the team felt the audience would have disliked him. There was an alternate scene of Sid in the hottub with the ladies which shows him saying to them "Let's jump in the gene pool and see what happens." One of the female sloths then kicks him in the groin. This was cut because it was not suitable for children and may have gotten the film a PG-13 rating. Other innuendos with Sid were cut from the film. Sid was supposed to have a female sloth named Sylvia, voiced by Kristen Johnston, chasing after him, whom he despised and kept ditching. All the removed scenes can be seen on the DVD.
Animation
The characters and environments in ''Ice Age'' were modeled and animated using WaveFront's
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (East Africa), a p ...
animation software. Rendering was completed using CGI Studio, an in-house
ray tracing program being developed since Blue Sky's formation in 1987 and previously used for Wedge's 1998 short film, ''
Bunny''. While ''
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius'', released three months before ''Ice Age'', became the first computer-animated film to make use of ray tracing technology, ''Ice Age'' would have received the distinction had it been released at the time Blue Sky began work on the movie.
In order to keep the film at a more exciting pace, the development team took certain liberties with Sid in terms of realism. Although real-life ground sloths were slow-moving and rigid, Sid was given a fast movement speed in certain scenes, as well as a more flexible range of motions. Conversely, the character's arm movements were more restricted in order to retain a sense of laziness true to the nature of sloths. Manny was a particularly difficult character to animate due to his unique attributes as a mammoth, such as his long fur and massive trunks that covered up his face.
Dealing with a creature which had seldom appeared in animation at the time, the team needed to figure out how Manny would realistically move with character designer Pete DeSeve explaining that "a wooly mammoth isn't simply an elephant with long fur". According to co-director Carlos Saldanha, Diego was one of the most complexly animated characters in the movie, with some scenes showing off his high movement speed as a sabre-toothed tiger while others kept his movement more contained and focused on his facial expressions to carry the moment.
Voice casting
The voice cast of ''Ice Age'' was encouraged to
make up their own dialogue during recording. Several lines in the film were improvised by the actors.
For Manny, the studio was initially looking at people with big voices.
James Earl Jones and
Ving Rhames
Irving Rameses Rhames ( ; born May 12, 1959) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying IMF Agent Luther Stickell in the Mission: Impossible (film series), ''Mission: Impossible'' film series (1996–2025) and crime boss Marsellus Wal ...
were considered, but they sounded too obvious and Wedge wanted more comedy.
Albert Brooks was also offered the role. Instead, the role was given to
Ray Romano because they thought his voice sounded very elephant-like. Wedge described Romano's voice as deep and slow in delivery, but also with a "sarcastic wit behind it".
John Leguizamo, who provided the voice for Sid, experimented with over 40 voices for the character, including a slower-sounding voice to fit with the lazy nature of a
giant sloth. Leguizamo came up with the final voice and trademark
lateral lisp for the character after watching footage of sloths and learning that they store food in the pockets of their mouths which ferments over time. Leguizamo remarked in an interview with
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
that he had wanted to contribute to an animated project for a while, claiming that cartoon voice actor
Mel Blanc was "one of my comedy Gods" and a large source of inspiration for him as a child.
Music
The official soundtrack to ''Ice Age'' was released on May 14, 2002, by
Varèse Sarabande. The soundtrack consists of the original musical score composed for the film by
David Newman and performed by the
Hollywood Studio Symphony. The song "
Send Me on My Way" by
Rusted Root is also featured in the film but is absent from the album. The Swedish group
Bubbles released the song "Somewhere" (on their 2002 album "
Inbetween") to promote the movie, outside of the United States. The Japanese version has a theme song called "A Single Drop of Tears" by
ZONE.
Reception
Box office
The film had a $46.3 million opening weekend, a large number not usually seen until the summer season, and way ahead of Fox's most optimistic projection of about $30 million. It ranked number one at the box office during its first weekend, beating out ''
Resident Evil'', ''
Showtime'' and ''
The Time Machine
''The Time Machine'' is an 1895 dystopian post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the Time Traveller who travels to the year 802,701. The work is generally credited with the popularizati ...
''.
''Ice Age'' broke ''
Liar Liar''s record for a March opening (later surpassed in 2006 by its sequel, ''
Ice Age: The Meltdown'') and at the time was the third-best opening ever for an animated feature—after ''
Monsters, Inc.'' ($62.6 million) and ''
Toy Story 2
''Toy Story 2'' is a 1999 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and the first sequel to Toy Story. It is the second installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and was directed by J ...
'' ($57.4 million).
''Ice Age'' finished its domestic box office run with $176,387,405 and grossed $383,257,136 worldwide, being the 9th highest gross of 2002 in North America and the 8th best worldwide at the time.
It was one of the two animated films of that year to make over $100 million domestically, with the other one being ''
Lilo & Stitch''.
Critical response
''Ice Age'' holds a 77% approval rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
based on 166 reviews, with an average rating of . The site's consensus reads: "Even though ''Ice Age'' is treading over the same grounds as ''Monsters, Inc.'' and ''
Shrek
''Shrek'' is a 2001 American animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, and written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, and Roger S. H. Schulman, loosely based on the 1990 children's picture boo ...
'', it has enough wit and laughs to stand on its own."
Similar site
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
had a score of 61% out of 34 reviews, meaning "generally favorable" reviews.
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...
'' gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote "I came to scoff and stayed to smile". Elvis Mitchell of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' called the film a "blandly likeable computer-animation extravaganza", comparing the film's plot to the 1948
Western film
The Western is a film genre defined by the American Film Institute as films which are "set in the American West that mbodythe spirit, the struggle, and the demise of the new frontier." Generally set in the American frontier between the Calif ...
''
3 Godfathers''.
According to
CinemaScore
CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data.
Background
Ed Mintz, who ...
polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave ''Ice Age'' an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Accolades
''Ice Age'' was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in
2003
2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater.
In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War.
Demographic ...
, losing to ''
Spirited Away''.
The film is recognized by
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the History of cinema in the United States, motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private fu ...
in the following lists:
* 2008:
AFI's 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute (AFI), the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008. In the special, various actors ...
:
** Nominated Animation Film
Release
''Ice Age'' was released on March 15, 2002. The initial home video release for ''Ice Age'' was accompanied by an $85 million marketing campaign involving promotional partnerships with 14 different companies, including
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
,
Pizza Hut,
Carl's Jr.,
Dole, Langer's,
Valpak,
Cold Stone Creamery, and the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...
. The movie was released on 2-disc
DVD,
VHS and
D-Theater in November 2002. All three releases included ''
Gone Nutty'', a short film starring Scrat and detailing his further antics as he tries to bury his acorn.
The DVD release was
THX certified and gave the viewer the option of viewing the film in either widescreen or
pan and scan fullscreen. Another single disc release was released in February 2005 to promote both the announcement of the film's sequel and ''
Robots''.
In early 2005, the film received a two-disc "Extreme Cool Edition" exclusively to the UK, Australia, and Germany. This release retains all of the bonus features missing on original international releases, such as games and the ''Bunny'' short film, a
DTS audio track, a higher bitrate and a sneak preview to ''Robots''. The release also comes with a trading card featuring the latter film's protagonist, Rodney Copperbottom, and a new feature called "Extreme Cool View" where throughout the film, facts about the film and the Ice Age would be shown, along with interviews from the cast and crew and featurettes on how they make the movie. A similar version would be released to the US in March 2006, titled the "Super Cool Edition", albeit not including the DTS track.
The film was released on
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
in March 2008, and beside ''Gone Nutty'', it included 9 minutes of deleted scenes.
''Ice Age'' was included on
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...
's streaming service
Disney+
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
in March 2020 with an upgraded 4K version.
Video game
A
tie-in video game
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
was developed by
Artificial Mind and Movement and published by
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Anno'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ' ...
for the
Game Boy Advance
The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...
. A
platform game
A platformer (also called a platform game, and sometimes a jump 'n' run game) is a subgenre of action game in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels wi ...
, it has the player controlling Sid and Manny through 10 levels as they carry Roshan. The game holds an aggregate ranking of 46.00% on
GameRankings
GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...
and 47/100 on
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
.
Sequels
Since the release of ''Ice Age'', several sequels have followed. ''
Ice Age: The Meltdown'', the first sequel, was released in March 2006, following the main characters trying to escape a massive flooding due to
global warming
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...
, as well as Manny's concern over whether or not his species is going
extinct
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
. A third installment, ''
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs'', was released in 2009, followed by a fourth film, ''
Ice Age: Continental Drift'', in 2012, and a fifth installment, ''
Ice Age: Collision Course'', in 2016.
A
sixth film is set for release on December 18, 2026.
With the release of ''Collision Course'', the ''Ice Age'' series became the first computer-animated movie franchise to house five theatrical installments, not including spinoffs.
Following
Disney's purchase of 20th Century Fox in 2019 and the closure of Blue Sky Studios in 2021, a spin-off film titled ''
The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild'' and produced by
Walt Disney Pictures was released directly to streaming on
Disney+
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
in 2022.
See also
*
List of animated feature-length films
*
List of computer-animated films
* ''
3 Godfathers'', a 1948
Western film with a similar plot
*
Pleistocene megafauna
References
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
2002 films
2002 American animated films
2002 children's films
2002 computer-animated films
2002 fantasy films
2000s adventure comedy films
20th Century Fox films
20th Century Fox animated films
20th Century Fox Animation films
American computer-animated films
Animated films about animals
Animated films about squirrels
Animated films about talking animals
Blue Sky Studios films
2000s children's comedy films
2000s children's fantasy films
2002 directorial debut films
Films scored by David Newman (composer)
Films about elephants
Films directed by Carlos Saldanha
Films directed by Chris Wedge
Films produced by Lori Forte
Films with screenplays by Michael Berg
Films with screenplays by Michael J. Wilson
Ice Age (franchise) films
American road movies
Animated films about friendship
2000s road movies
2002 comedy films
Avalanches in film
2000s English-language films
English-language fantasy films
English-language adventure comedy films