Ice Age: Collision Course

Ice Age: Collision Course is a 2016 American 3D computer-animated science fiction comedy film produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the fifth installment in the Ice Age film series and the sequel to Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012). The film was directed by Mike Thurmeier and Galen Tan Chu from a screenplay by Michael J. Wilson, Michael Berg and Yoni Brenner, and stars Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Jennifer Lopez, and Simon Pegg reprising their roles from the previous films alongside Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Adam DeVine, Nick Offerman, Max Greenfield, Stephanie Beatriz, Melissa Rauch, Michael Strahan, Jessie J and Neil deGrasse Tyson. In the film, after Scrat accidentally launches several deadly meteors to Earth during an attempt to bury his acorn, Manny, the Herd, and Buck must go on a life or death mission to find a way to fend them off.

The film premiered at the Sydney Film Festival on June 19, 2016, and was released in the United States on July 22, 2016. Ice Age: Collision Course received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $408 million worldwide on a $105 million budget.

Plot
Scrat is once again trying to bury his acorn but 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. Meanwhile, Manny and Ellie are preparing upcoming marriage between Peaches and her fiancé, Julian. Diego and his wife Shira want to start a family, but their fierce appearance tends to scare kids. Sid is dumped by his girlfriend, Francine, just as he is about to propose to her, and he laments his solitude. During Manny and Ellie's wedding anniversary party, some of the asteroids strike the place and The Herd barely escape. Meanwhile, at the underground lost world, Buck returns a dinosaur egg back to its rightful owner after it was stolen by a trio of flying dromaeosaurs named Gavin, Gertie, and Roger. Buck discovers an ancient stone pillar and takes it to the surface, where he meets Manny and the others.

Buck explains to The Herd that according to the pillar, the asteroids had caused several extinctions in the past and with a massive one still incoming, he believes that the only place they could find a clue to stop it is on the site of the impact of the previous ones, as according to its engravings, they always fall at the same place. However, the three dromaeosaurs overhear their conversation, and Gavin and Gertie decide to stop them, believing that they could easily avoid the impact, thus not only getting their revenge on Buck, but also killing all mammals and securing domination over Earth for their species. Roger is reluctant, but Gavin and Gertie strong-arm him into cooperating.

As The Herd travels to the crash site, they discover that the asteroids have electro-magnetic properties. Buck theorizes that if a huge quantity of smaller asteroids should be gathered and launched into orbit, they could attract the main asteroid as well and prevent it from falling on 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 have fallen long ago, where Sid meets Brooke, a female ground sloth who falls in love with him. However, Shangri Llama, the leader of Geotopia, refuses to cooperate with Buck's plan to send the city's crystals into space in order to prevent the imminent impact, 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 them to their real ages and revealing their true crone-like appearances.

Once Brooke convinces the Geotopians that preventing the asteroid's fall is more important than their lost youth, they and The Herd help with Buck's plan, which is to fill up a geyser with the crystals so that the pressure launches them into space to draw the asteroid away. The dromaeosaurs attempt to intervene, but Buck convinces Roger that they will not be able to survive the asteroid, and he in turn convinces Gavin and Gertie to help. The plan works, and the asteroid is pulled back into space. The Herd then departs back home, including Sid, who parts ways from Brooke, but just after they leave, an asteroid piece falls inside a hot spring, giving it rejuvenating properties and making the Geotopians and Sid's grandmother, who stayed behind with them, regain their youth. After The Herd returns, Manny reconciles with Julian, Peaches and Julian celebrate their wedding, Diego and Shira become heroes to the kids who were scared of them before, and a rejuvenated Brooke appears during the ceremony to reunite with Sid.

In the film's epilogue, Scrat keeps struggling to control the alien ship until it crashes on Mars, destroying all life on the planet.

In a mid-credits scene, Scrat finds his acorn, but gets beaten by some doors.

Cast

 * Ray Romano as Manny, a woolly mammoth and the leader of The Herd.
 * John Leguizamo as Sid, a ground sloth and the founder of The Herd.
 * Denis Leary as Diego, a saber-toothed tiger and the member of The Herd.
 * Queen Latifah as Ellie, a female woolly mammoth – Manny's wife.
 * Simon Pegg as Buck, a one-eyed weasel and a dinosaur-hunter who reunites with The Herd to warn them of the coming asteroid. Pegg also voices Pythagoras Buck and Robo Buck who exist in his mind alongside with Neil deBuck Weasel.
 * Seann William Scott and Josh Peck as Crash and Eddie, two opossums and the "brothers" of Ellie.
 * Keke Palmer as Peaches, a young female woolly mammoth – daughter of Manny and Ellie.
 * Adam DeVine as Julian, a young male woolly mammoth and Peaches' fiancee.
 * Neil deGrasse Tyson as Neil deBuck Weasel, a weasel astronomer who exists in Buck's mind.
 * Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Shangri Llama, a yoga-loving llama and the spiritual leader of Geotopia.
 * Jessie J as Brooke, a ground sloth who is a resident of Geotopia and the love interest of Sid.
 * Jennifer Lopez as Shira, a female saber-toothed tiger – Diego's significant other and the late Captain Gutt's former first mate pirate.
 * Wanda Sykes as Granny, an aging ground sloth and Sid's grandmother.
 * Nick Offerman as Gavin, a flying dromaeosaur – father of Roger and Gertie.
 * Stephanie Beatriz as Gertie, a flying dromaeosaur – Gavin's daughter.
 * Max Greenfield as Roger, a flying dromaeosaur that is freaky and cowardly – Gavin's son.
 * Melissa Rauch as Francine, a female ground sloth who dumps Sid as she is his former girlfriend.
 * Michael Strahan as Teddy, a fearless rabbit and a resident of Geotopia.
 * Lilly Singh as Bubbles and Misty, a pair of "minicorns" who reside in Geotopia.
 * Chris Wedge as Scrat, a saber-toothed squirrel.

Production
The concept of Collision Course was deeply rooted in a scene from the first Ice Age film where Manny and his friends 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. As with the third film, which was also inspired by the ice cave scene in which The Herd comes across a dinosaur that was incased in ice, the team went back to the first film to search for a possible inspiration for this next installment. The characters were first hand-drawn on animation 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.

The "Figaro's Aria" sequence which involved Buck saving an egg from a trio of dromaeosaurs 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 long. 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 session took place in Los Angeles, California since most of the actors live there while the studio is based in New York City. Director Mike Thurmeier and co-director Galen T. Chu would take turns travelling to L.A. to head the recording sessions. In the film, Simon Pegg sang a rendition of "Figaro". Jesse Tyler Ferguson was offered the role after the producers saw his performance in Modern Family. It is his first time working in an animated film. 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. 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".

A promotional poster, shown in June 2015, at the Licensing Expo, revealed the film's full title: Ice Age: Collision Course.

Soundtrack
The film was composed by John Debney, who replaced John Powell from the previous three films due to Powell being busy with other projects. However, most of Powell's score from the third film was included, along with David Newman's score from the first film.

Release
Initially the film was scheduled for release on July 15, 2016. However, the release was delayed to July 22, to avoid competition with the Ghostbusters reboot that was also scheduled for July 15. An extended sneak peek of the movie in the form of a short film called Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe was attached to theatrical showings of Blue Sky Studio's The Peanuts Movie on November 6, 2015. The teaser poster of the film was revealed on November 6, 2015 with the words "Bring Scrat Home" spoofing The Martian. The short film was released later on November 9, 2015, on 20th Century Fox's official YouTube page.

Home media
Ice Age: Collision Course was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, 4K Blu-ray and digital download on October 11, 2016. Special features include a new short film titled Scrat: Spaced Out, which is primarily made up of Scrat's scenes from the film, with a few unique scenes at the end.

Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe
Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe is a five-minute short film, with the majority of its footage, minus the closing scene, taken from the beginning of Ice Age: Collision Course. Directed by Michael Thurmeier and Galen Chu, the short premiered on November 6, 2015, along with the film The Peanuts Movie. 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
Scrat: Spaced Out is a 15-minute short film that compiles all Scrat's scenes from Ice Age: Collision Course with a few unique scenes at the end. The short was included on the film's home media releases.

Following the events of Ice 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 Scratzons) 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 a black hole sucking everything nearby into it. Scrat jumps out of the saucer, knocks the Scratzon 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.

Box office
Ice Age: Collision Course grossed $64 million in North America and $344 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $408 million, against a budget of $105 million. 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).

In the United States and Canada Ice Age: Collision Course opened on July 22, 2016, alongside Star Trek Beyond and Lights Out, and was projected to gross $30–35 million from 3,997 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $850,000 from Thursday night previews and $7.8 million on its first day. 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.

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. 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 10th time in the studio's history. The film came in third place overall, behind the two Chinese films Cold War 2 and Big Fish & Begonia. 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.

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 behind Furious 7 and Captain America: Civil War; Colombia ($2.18 million), Central America ($2.2 million), and Uruguay ($620,618); the second-biggest in Mexico ($8.4 million), behind Ice 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). 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). In France, it opened amidst the 2016 Nice 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, behind Ghostbusters which also opened the same weekend. In China, it opened on Tuesday, August 23, alongside Jason 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. It has so far grossed a total of $63.6 million there.

Critical response
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 17% based on 116 reviews and an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's critical 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." Rotten Tomatoes also ranks it as the worst-reviewed film in the Ice Age franchise. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 34 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Katie Walsh of Los Angeles Times wrote, "Collision Course is simply a perfunctory, watered-down entry in the series that feels like it should have been released on home video." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "The fifth entry in the Ice 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."

Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote, "The long-running series returns to form with an infectious chatterbox comedy about the end of the world as we know it."

Possible sequel
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 sixth installment. In July 2016, Bustle noted that the potential of Ice Age 6 actually being produced was relatively high even though it could largely depend on the box office performance of the fifth film. PopWrapped commented on the subject of a sequel in February 2017, pointing out the fifth film's poor reception and how the franchise was moving further into absurdity and further away from leaving any lasting emotional impact on the audience, and suggesting that the sixth film could "redeem" the franchise by going back to its roots and reintroducing the humans from the original film, particularly the little baby named Roshan, and thereby bring the audience to remember why they loved Ice Age so much in the first place, and maybe end the series on a high note.