| Ice Age: Collision Course | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Michael Thurmeier |
| Screenplay by |
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| Story by | Aubrey Solomon |
| Produced by | Lori Forte |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Renato Falcão |
| Edited by | James M. Palumbo |
| Music by | John Debney |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 95 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $105 million[2] |
| Box office | $408.5 million[2] |
Ice Age: Collision Course is a 2016 American animatedadventurecomedy film produced byBlue Sky Studios. The fifth installment intheIce Age film series, it was directed byMichael Thurmeier, and written byMichael Wilson,Michael Berg, and Yoni Brenner.Ray Romano,John Leguizamo,Denis Leary,Josh Peck,Simon Pegg,Seann William Scott,Jennifer Lopez andQueen Latifah reprise their roles from the previous films. In the film,Scrat is propelled into outer space in an abandoned spaceship during an attempt to bury his acorn and accidentally sends a giant asteroid towards Earth. Manny, the Herd and Buck must go on a life-or-death mission to find a way to fend it off.
The film premiered at theSydney Film Festival on June 19, 2016, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 22 by20th Century Fox. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $408 million against a $105 million production budget. A spin-off film,The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, was released in 2022 onDisney+, while asequel,Ice Age: Boiling Point, is scheduled for theatrical release in 2027.
After the events of theprevious film, Peaches is engaged to marry a benign mammoth named Julian, but Manny disapproves of this as he finds Julian annoying and incapable of protecting her. The concern escalates when Peaches reveals her wish to travel and explore the world as their honeymoon, which both Manny and Ellie oppose. Diego and Shira want to have children but worry they will not make friends, as the other kids are scared of saber-tooth tigers. Sid is about to propose marriage to his girlfriend, Francine, but is dumped by her and laments his solitude.
During Manny and Ellie's wedding anniversary, asteroids strike the place, and the herd barely escapes and takes shelter in a cave. Meanwhile, in the underground lost world, Buck returns aChasmosaurus egg to its mother after it was stolen by a trio of flyingdromaeosaurs named Gavin, Gertie, and Roger. Buck discovers an ancient stone pillar and takes it to the surface, where he reunites with the herd. Buck explains that according to the pillar, asteroids have caused two extinctions in the past, and with the next one incoming, he believes that the only place they could find a clue to stop it is on the site of the previous ones' impact: a nearby volcano, as according to its engravings, they always fall in the same place.
However, the trio overhear their conversation, and Gavin and Gertie decide to stop them. They believe that they could easily avoid the impact due to their natural ability to fly, thus not only getting their revenge on Buck but also eradicating Earth's population and securing domination over the planet for the dinosaurs. Roger is reluctant, but Gavin and Gertie strong-arm him to cooperate. During the herd's journey to the crash site, Buck discovers that asteroids have electromagnetic properties. He theorizes that if a large number of smaller asteroids were gathered and launched into orbit, they could attract the main asteroid away from Earth.
After facing several obstacles and the interference of the dromaeosaurs, the herd arrives at Geotopia, a community of immortal animals formed inside one of the asteroids that fell long ago. There, Sid meets Brooke, a ground sloth who instantly falls in love with him. Shangri Llama, the leader of Geotopia, refuses to cooperate with Buck's plan to use the city's crystals to stop the asteroid, as they are the key to the residents' longevity. Sid inadvertently destroys the entire city when he attempts to remove one of the crystals to present Brooke with, immediately aging the Geotopians to their real ages, much to Shangri Llama's annoyance.
After Brooke convinces the other Geotopians that stopping the asteroid is more critical than their lost youth, they and the herd fill up a volcano with a gigantic ball made up of all the crystals so that the pressure launches them into space to draw the asteroid away. The dromaeosaurs attempt to intervene but soon discover they will not survive the asteroid's impact. Buck convinces them to help and tells them that the dinosaurs can live harmoniously with them. After a small meteor hits Gavin, they accidentally drop the last and biggest crystal. Still, Manny and Julian work together to throw it back into the volcano, causing Julian to earn Manny's approval. The volcano then erupts, sending the magnetic crystal shards to the sky, which sends the oncoming asteroid back into space, away from Earth.
The herd then departs for home, including Sid, who parts ways with Brooke. Still, just after they leave, a small crystal shard falls inside a hot spring, giving it rejuvenating properties and making the Geotopians and Granny, who stayed behind with them,regain their youth. After the herd returns, Manny and Ellie reconcile with Peaches, encouraging her to chase her dreams. Peaches and Julian marry afterwards, while Diego and Shira become heroes to the kids, and a rejuvenated Brooke appears during the wedding ceremony to reunite with Sid, much to his delight.
Scrat accidentally crashes onto Mars and unintentionally annihilates all life before returning to his ship and fleeing back to Earth.
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The concept ofCollision Course was deeply rooted in a scene fromthe first film where Manny, Sid, Diego and Roshan are walking through an ice cave and they spot a spaceship that's encased in ice, an item that inspired this film in the series.[15] As withthe third film, which was also inspired by the ice cave scene in which the Herd comes across a dinosaur that was encased in ice, the team went back to the first film to search for a possible inspiration for this next installment.[16] The characters were first hand-drawn onanimation software, complete with color and animated clips of the characters doing specific actions. They were then sent to be hand-sculpted with clay, and ultimately scanned into CGI software and animated around the model.[15]
The "Figaro's Aria" sequence which involved Buck saving an egg from a trio ofdromaeosaurs proved to be one of the most challenging sequences for Blue Sky Studios' animators, as it involved a continuous uninterrupted shot that ran for around two minutes. It was one of the first scenes put into production but also one of the last to exit production due to its time-consuming and difficult structure, as the team would only be able to produce three or four seconds of footage a week.
The recording sessions took place in Los Angeles, California since most of the actors live there while the studio is based in New York. DirectorMichael Thurmeier and co-director Galen Tan Chu would take turns travelling to L.A. to head the recording sessions.[17] In the film,Simon Pegg sang a rendition of "Figaro".[17]Jesse Tyler Ferguson was offered the role of Shangri Llama after the producers saw his performance inModern Family. It is his first time working in an animated film.[18] Ferguson blew out his voice on the first day of the recording session because he did a lot of yelling. He then took a few days off and came back later to finish his part.[18] He admitted that he struggled the first time he heard his voice come out of his character's mouth. As a result, he decided to stop watching interviews of himself on television because he found them to be "too weird".[18]
A promotional poster, shown in June 2015, at the Licensing Expo, revealed the film's full title:Ice Age: Collision Course.[19]
The film score was composed byJohn Debney, who replacedJohn Powell from the previous three films due to Powell being busy with other projects.[20][21] However, most of Powell's score from the third film was included, along withDavid Newman's score from the first film.Jessie J performed a song dubbed "My Superstar" with Blaze n Vill[22] as a contribution to the film. Other songs in the film includeSimon Pegg's rendition of "Largo al factotum".
Ice Age: Collision Course was originally scheduled for release on July 15, 2016.[23] However, it was delayed to July 22,[24] to avoid competition with theGhostbusters reboot that was also scheduled for July 15. An extended sneak peek of the movie in the form of a short film calledCosmic Scrat-tastrophe was attached to theatrical showings of Blue Sky Studios'The Peanuts Movie on November 6, 2015.[25] The teaser poster of the film was revealed on November 6, 2015, with the words "Bring Scrat Home" spoofingThe Martian.[26] The short film was released later on November 9, 2015, on 20th Century Fox's official YouTube page.[27]
Ice Age: Collision Course was released by20th Century Fox Home Entertainment onDVD,Blu-ray,Blu-ray 3D,4K Blu-ray and digital download on October 11, 2016. Special features include a new short film titledScrat: Spaced Out,[28] which is primarily made up of Scrat's scenes from the film, with a few unique scenes at the end.
Ice Age: Collision Course was released onThe Walt Disney Company's streaming serviceDisney+ on July 3, 2020.
Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe is a five-minute short film, with the majority of its footage, minus the closing scene, taken from the beginning ofIce Age: Collision Course.[29][30] Directed by Michael Thurmeier and Galen Chu, the short premiered on November 6, 2015, along with the filmThe Peanuts Movie.[25] In the short, Scrat, trying to bury his acorn, accidentally activates an abandoned alien ship that takes him into deep space, where he unwittingly sends several asteroids en route to a collision with Earth.
Scrat: Spaced Out is a short film that compiles all Scrat's scenes fromIce Age: Collision Course with a few unique scenes at the end.[31] The short was included on the film's home media releases.[28]
Following the events ofIce Age: Collision Course, Scrat is heading back to Earth in the saucer. An acorn-shaped ship appears and pulls the acorn, with Scrat holding onto it. In the ship, three alien squirrels (A.K.A Scratazons) are surprised by finding Scrat, and blast him away from the acorn. Scrat tries to take it back with a tractor beam in a nearby saucer, but the alien leader pulls it back with another tractor beam. Being pulled to both sides, the nutrogen inside the acorn snaps, creating a massive explosion, which destroys the ship and creates ablack hole sucking everything nearby into it. Scrat jumps out of the saucer, knocks the Scratazon alien leader into the black hole while trying to save the acorn, but gets pulled in the hole nonetheless. He emerges in space along with the acorn, only for the black hole appearing again, snatching the acorn and leaving Scrat alone again. The short ends with the latter screaming in frustration.
Ice Age: Collision Course grossed $64 million in North America and $344 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $408.5 million, against a production budget of $105 million.[2] In terms of total earnings, its biggest markets outside of North America were China ($66 million) (with the country being also its largest territory overall), France ($26.3 million), Brazil ($25 million), Germany ($24.7 million) and Mexico ($22.2 million).[32]
In the United States and CanadaIce Age: Collision Course opened on July 22, 2016, alongsideStar Trek Beyond andLights Out, and was projected to gross $30–35 million from 3,997 theaters in its opening weekend.[33] It made $850,000 from Thursday night previews and $7.8 million on its first day.[34] It had a $21 million debut in its opening weekend, finishing fourth at the box office. The film finished its theatrical run with a domestic gross of $64 million. Produced on a budget of $105 million, the film became the lowest-grossing film of the franchise as well as Blue Sky's lowest-grossing film, causing the film to become abox-office bomb in the North American market.[35][36][37]
The film began its international theatrical run two weeks prior to its North American release, earning $18 million from seven markets on about 5,286 screens.[38] In its second weekend, it added $32.2 million from 25 countries. As a result, it only topped the international box office for a non-Chinese film but also helped Fox pass the $2 billion mark internationally, making this the eighth consecutive calendar year Fox has surpassed this milestone, and the tenth time in the studio's history.[39] The film came in third place overall, behind the two Chinese filmsCold War 2 andBig Fish & Begonia.[40][41] By its third weekend, after grossing another $53.5 million from 15,132 screens in a total 51 markets, it finally topped the international box office and became the biggest grosser of the weekend.[42]
It recorded the biggest opening of all time for Fox in Argentina ($3.77 million), where its debut is also the third biggest of all time behindFurious 7 andCaptain America: Civil War; Colombia ($2.18 million), Central America ($2.2 million) and Uruguay ($620,618); the second biggest in Mexico ($8.4 million), behindIce Age: Continental Drift; Peru, Chile and Ecuador; the biggest opening among the series in Brazil ($4.5 million) and the biggest non-holiday animated opening ever in India ($1.66 million).[39][42] Elsewhere, it had No. 1 openings in Russia ($5.9 million), Italy ($4.5 million), Germany ($4.2 million), Austria ($893,350) and Switzerland ($514,789) and No. 5 in Australia ($3.1 million).[38][42] In France, it opened amidst the2016 Nice truck attack and delivered an opening weekend of $7.1 million. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, it debuted in second place with $5.2 million, behindGhostbusters which also opened the same weekend.[42] In China, it opened on Tuesday, August 23, alongsideJason Bourne and delivered a six-day opening of $42.7 million and a Friday to Sunday debut of $23.1 million. The debut makes it the top non-local animated opening in the country that year and is also the franchise's best debut.[43][44][45] It has so far grossed a total of $63.6 million there.[46]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 18% of 122 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.1/10/10. The website's consensus reads: "Unoriginal and unfunny,Ice Age: Collision Course offers further proof that not even the healthiest box office receipts can keep a franchise from slouching toward creative extinction."[47] Rotten Tomatoes also ranksCollision Course as the worst Ice Age film ever made.[48]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 34 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[49] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[36]
Katie Walsh ofLos Angeles Times gave the film a negative review, writing that "Collision Course is simply a perfunctory, watered-down entry in the series that feels like it should have been released on home video."[50]Peter Travers ofRolling Stone gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "The fifth entry in theIce Age series is a loud, lazy, laugh-starved cash grab that cynically exploits its target audience (I use the term advisedly) by serving them scraps and calling it yummy."[51]Peter Bradshaw ofThe Guardian gave it 2/5 stars, writing, "the time to call it a day probably came way back in theJurassic period of 2002, when the credits were rolling on the (perfectly decent)first film. Now it's running on empty."[52]The Washington Post's Stephanie Merry wrote, "Lazy, scattershot and excruciatingly unfunny, the movie is a hazard to the very young, who might come away with the erroneous impression that movies don't get any better than this."[53]
Owen Gleiberman ofVariety gave the film a positive review, saying that "The long-running series returns to form with an infectious chatterbox comedy about the end of the world as we know it."[54]Stuff's Kate Robertson wrote, "The familiar voices of Ray Romano, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Max Greenfield make for some distinct and headstrong characters - a winning formula, if there ever was one."[55] Ed Potton ofThe Times gave it 4/5 stars, calling it "a rare case of the classic sequel formula — same again but bigger and louder — being rather effective."[56]
On the possibility of a sequel, co-director Galen T. Chu stated in June 2016 that there were some ideas for the sixth installment.[17] In July 2016,Bustle noted that the chances of a sixth entry were relatively high but would depend on the box office performance of the fifth film.[57]
In February 2022, Forte discussed the possibility of a sequel while promotingThe Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, saying, "I think it's a little premature. We hope that people will respond to this, and that will promote us to be able to do another movie. If the audiences want it, we've got plenty of ideas. There's no end to ideas and adventures and characters, so we're ready if they're ready."[58]
In September 2024, while making a guest appearance on theWait Wait...Don't Tell Me! podcast, Leguizamo suggested that a sixth mainIce Age film could be in development.[59] In November 2024,a sixth film was confirmed to be in the works with Romano, Leguizamo, Latifah, Leary, and Pegg set to reprise their voice roles.[60][61] In August 2025, the film's title was revealed asIce Age: Boiling Point, with its release date pushed from December 18, 2026, to February 5, 2027.[62]
A spin-off film, developed for streaming onDisney+, was titledThe Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild and centered around Buck going on an adventure in the Dinosaur World with Crash and Eddie. Simon Pegg reprised his role as the title character, being the only cast member from the film series to do so. The film was released on January 28, 2022, to generally negative reviews from critics.[63]
On May 4, 2021, it was revealed that a short series produced byBlue Sky Studios (prior to their closure) known asScrat Tales would be coming toDisney+, having been completed by the company before their dissolution the previous month. The series follows the titularScrat, who discovers that he has his own son.[64] Footage was later leaked ontoYouTube, with former Blue Sky animators revealing that the series would be coming to Disney+ in 2022 afterThe Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild. A plush for the character of Scrat's son was also unveiled via Just Play Products' website, with the second image featuring a blue tag containing the logo forScrat Tales, although the listing was retitled underThe Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild to promote the spin-off film.[65] The series was released as aDisney+ original series on April 13, 2022.[66]
The fifthquel earned a B+, the lowest in the series
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