Ice Age: Collision Course

***Ice Age: Collision Course*** is a 2016 American computer-animated comic science fiction 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. It was considered a box office disappointment, despite grossing $408 million worldwide on a $105 million budget, forcing a write-down of $53 million. It also received negative reviews aimed at the formulaic plot, derivative material, unfunny humor and character development while praising its animation; it is the worst-reviewed film in the *Ice Age* franchise.

## Plot

The film starts, as usual, with Scrat (Chris Wedge) trying to find some place to store his acorn. Before he can stick it in the ice, he falls through some ice and into what first seems to be a cave. Scrat puts the acorn on a pad that turns on a giant flying saucer. He bursts it out of the ice block it was trapped in and out into space. After hitting the planets like pinball or pool balls, Scrat ends up shot out of the saucer with the acorn. He decides to stick it into an asteroid, naturally causing it to split and send it hurtling toward Earth. Down on Earth, Manny (Ray Romano) and his daughter, Peaches (Keke Palmer), are playing hockey with a turtle shell. They're joined by Peaches' fiancé, Julian (Adam DeVine), a lovable mammoth. Ellie (Queen Latifah), Manny's wife, and Granny (Wanda Sykes) join them on the ice rink. Julian gives Ellie flowers, which Manny is annoyed with, just like every other thing Julian does, even though everyone else loves him. Julian then gives Manny a giant bear hug, which Manny is very uncomfortable with. Ellie then pulls Peaches away for something private.

Sid (John Leguizamo) is practicing a proposal for another sloth named Francine (Melissa Rauch). He thinks she's his true love, but they only went on one 14-minute date, and she can't stand him. Francine leaves Sid alone with his mariachi band that he prematurely set up. He wipes his tears with a poison ivy leaf. Manny talks to Diego (Denis Leary) over Ellie having been acting weird. Manny asks Diego if Shira (Jennifer Lopez) ever giggles. Diego glances over to his mate, who is ferociously chasing a gazelle. Diego answers that isn't a big giggler. Sid, their friend, looked like a mess, for he got dumped. Manny told him that he should get cleaned up. Back in space, Scrat managed to get his acorn back and squeeze himself out of his space helmet and into his space suit where he travels through the rubber airline back towards the UFO. Inside, Scrat notices Earth, runs to the front of the ship, and gives the planet and homesick look. Scrat has a moment of silence, until his foot slid down a switch, causing the ship to be launched back away from Earth. Trying to get back to Earth, Scrat pushes multiple buttons, until he activates a gravitational switch, where the UFO creates artificial gravity, causing Scrat, his acorn, and a few devices to float. Scrat then hurries down, to turn the switch off, bringing him and the objects back down. Seeing his acorn, Scrat runs for it, but unknowingly turns the switch back on, only this time, switching it to a gravitational pull. Just when Scrat reaches for his acorn, the gravity pulls him down and he's unable to get his acorn. As Scrat struggles to get back up, his skin gets pulled down revealing his skeleton, and also causes his teeth to to fall, piercing his tongue. Finally, Scrat gets a hold of his acorn, but the acorn starts to roll and rolls over his finger, causing pain because of the gravity pulling it down. Then, the acorn started to roll where Scrat lied. Scrat tried to escape, but the acorn ended up rolling over him. Scrat groaned in pain. Manny finds Ellie and all their other animal friends having organized a party for their anniversary, which Manny totally forgot. Before that can become obvious, fireworks start going off in the sky, which everyone thinks is Manny's gift to her. Around this same time, Diego and Shira watch kids play, and think of their own kids. They end up scaring a young aardvark and a young start. During the party, Julian lets it slip that he and Peaches will be moving away from Manny and Ellie after getting married, even though they believed the two of them would live near them as neighbors. Moments later, a meteor comes falling toward them all. The animals run for cover as a full-blown meteor shower starts coming down. The herd runs into a cave and waits it out.

Underground, a family of Dino-Birds, Gavin (Nick Offerman) and his two kids Gertie (Stephanie Beatriz) and Roger (Max Greenfield), swipe an egg from a triceratops. Buck (Simon Pegg) a weasel and his wife scratte (karen disher) the female saber toothed squirrel who became buck's boyfriend after scrat left her in the dinoworld, swoops down and chases after the dino-birds, retrieving the egg and returning it to its mother withe a help of sids adoptive trex family, momzilla, eggbert, shelly and yoko. Buck and scratte then comes across an old stone pillar deep underground that prophecizes a doomsday event, which he and she takes with them to the surface. The dino-birds decide to follow him and kill him. The herd looks outside the cave and sees everything nearly in total ruins. Buck scratte crawls out of the hole from underground and reunites with his friends while meeting Shira, Granny, Julian, and a grown-up Peaches. Buck pulls out the a Stone Tablet and explains that every 160 million years, Earth gets cleansed by a gigantic asteroid that crashes in the exact same spot, so if they can head to the crash site, they can perhaps figure out a way to stop this asteroid from hitting. As they head out, the dino-birds hear their plan, and Gavin thinks they can avoid it since they can fly and avoid the crash, but Roger calls him out on that being a bad idea, so Gavin berates him like always. Gavin tells Roger he'd be useless if he didn't have his mother's eyes. Roger spots the herd with his great eyesight and they head off.

As the UFO flew in Space, Scrat chased his acorn until it landed in a room. Scrat raced over to get it, while powering the room. As Scrat reached for his acorn, the acorn suddenly disappeared, bewildering Scrat. The acorn appeared again in a different area. Scrat ran after it, but the acorn teleported again, back into the previous area. Scrat grabs a hold of it, but then gets teleported with the acorn. He comes back again, with the acorn mutated as his head. Scrat freaks out, running around, until he falls back on the teleporter and gets teleported again. Scrat gets mutated and teleported with his acorn multiple times, including having his acorn as his tail, hands, eyes, uvula, and nipples and also seems to get injured by his acorn. The teleportation finally stops. Before Scrat tries to get his acorn, he carefully reaches it aware of the teleporters, and destroys the teleporters, preparing to crush one of them with his acorn, until he gets zapped one final time into the bathroom of the UFO, throwing his acorn into the toilet. The toilet ends up flushing the acorn, and releases it outside the UFO. Scrat watches his acorn float in space, screaming in frustration.

On their way, the herd picks up some rocks that happen to be magnetized. Since Crash (Seann William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck) are confused (or just way too dumb to understand), Buck brings them inside his mind to meet Neil deBuck Weasel (Neil deGrasse Tyson), along with Pythagorus Buck and Robo Buck to explain the magnetic attraction of the rocks. The herd figures that if they get enough of these rocks, they can propel the asteroid away from Earth. As Scrat continues to get his nut, he uses the ship to cause some trouble on Earth. He pulls the moon around the planet to cause water to rise, which works to let the herd pass through. Then he hits another planet and causes an electric storm. The animals protect each other from the threat. Buck, after escaping the storm hears a baby, and runs inside. He then adopts the baby pumpkin as his own, naming her Bronwyn, even though the herd finds it strange. Manny and Ellie try to get in the way of Peaches and Julian's plan to move away. Manny first plays hockey with Julian, but since the guy isn't very coordinated, Manny accidentally whacks him in the face with the puck and causes him to fall into the icy water. Later, Ellie (with help from One Sid, Two Granny, Three Crash and Four Eddie) sets Peaches up with some problems she and Julian could face as parents. Peaches quickly takes care of everything like a champ. The herd rests for the night. The dino-birds stalk them and send Roger to get Buck. He flies into the cave, but he ends up taking Granny instead. She isn't afraid of the dino-birds, even when Gavin swallows her whole. She drags Gavin around from inside his stomach, trying to get out. Gertie helps her dad cough up Granny.

In the morning, the herd notices Granny is missing. They hear her yelling and see that the noise is coming from a crashed asteroid that is filled with thousands of magnetic crystals, calls Geotopia. They find Granny getting a massage from a bunny named Teddy (Michael Strahan). The herd is found by a kind sloth named Brooke (Jessie J), who instantly falls for Sid, and he reciprocates. She calls her minicorn squad, Bubbles and Misty to get Sid. Shangri Llama (Jesse Tyler Ferguson). He makes the herd do some yoga exercises as scratte tries to ask him for help in launching the magnetic crystals up in the air to stop the incoming asteroid. Shangri-Llama refuses since the asteroid crystals are what has kept him, Brooke, and the other animals living in the asteroid young and attractive. Brooke asks Sid to be her life mate, which he accepts. He wants to give her a nice crystal as a gift, so he picks one out of the wall, which causes the whole asteroid to fall apart and make the animals look like their proper ages, including Brooke. Shangri-Llama angrily chastises Sid. However, when it becomes clear the danger they are in, Brooke rallies the other animals to help the herd plug up the geysers so they can throw the crystals into an active volcano to shoot them into the sky to pull the asteroid off course. As they were working, Buck and scratte looked up into the sky to determine the time impact of the asteroid, witnessing that the mammals were ahead of it's timing of colliding with Earth.

Meanwhile, Scrat prepares to head back to earth, activating the ship. Unfortunately, the ship was stopped by a light beam from a large acorn shaped mothership wich capteres scrat and his acorn and frees the UFO shooting into the asteroid, causing it to head towards earth faster. Noticing this, the animals started to work harder with getting the biggest crystal in. As they set the plan in motion, the dino-birds swoop in, prevent the animals from getting in the largest crystal by knocking it over in a ditch, and try to kill scratte and Buck, but he appeals to Roger and helps him convince Gavin and Gertie to help out so that they can all survive. The dino-birds help pull the biggest crystal toward the volcano, but it is too heavy to push in. Manny tries to do it with Julian, but Julian suggests they let it roll down the hill so that it can eventually roll into the volcano. Meanwhile, scrat was trapped in the mothership and ends up meeting 3 female sabered squirrle-like aliens (the scratazons) and they saw scrat and starts attacking him, wich leads him to the control room. Scrat attacks back but the scratazon leader plows him on the surface of the control's of the ship and takes his acorn making scrat think the scratazons are going to destroy the universe by using his acorn as a power sorce of it. To stop that, he must fight back causing the mothership to activate a powerful beam at earth, the scratazon leader throws scrat at the other controls causing the mothership and earth to lift dangerosly to one side and everyone and everything falls everywhere... Manny and buck said goodbye as the world embraces for the end, but scrat refused to give up. He saw the self-destruct lever and the scratazons retilted the ship back and focusing on the acorn. When scrat pulls down on the lever, the scratazons was terified the ship was about to explode and scrat swipes his acorn and flees out of the bridge and the scratazons chases after him, and when things were falling apart, scrat gets onbord into one of the UFOs, the scratazon leader runs after him but the ufo escapes and the mothership explodes and a black hole forms, sucking everything in it before disappering. Scrat then activates a tracter beam to send the asteroid off-course and back into space. The animals and the three Dino-birds celebrate.

Sid and Brooke say goodbye to each other, giving each other drawings to remember one another. Granny also decides to stay so she can be with Teddy. After Sid leaves, the Geotopians get into a hot tub, where a crystal falls in. This makes everyone young again, including Granny and Brooke. While the herd is going home, sid asks scrat about what was happening when he was up in space The rest of the herd gathers for Peaches and Julian's wedding. Manny and Ellie finally accept that their girl will be starting her own family soon. Diego and Shira then tell the same kids they scared earlier the story of how they helped save the world. Brooke arrives at the wedding and reunites with Sid, then sings a song for the party, and Gavin, Gertie and Roger became new herd members.

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, the leader of The Herd and Ellie's husband.
* John Leguizamo as Sid, a ground sloth, the founder of The Herd, the love interest of Brooke and Granny's Grandson.
* Denis Leary as Diego, a saber tooth tiger, the member of The Herd and Shira's husband.
* Queen Latifah as Ellie, a female woolly mammoth, Manny's wife and Crash and Eddie's adopted sister.
* Simon Pegg as Buck, a one-eyed weasel and a dinosaur hunter who reunites with The Herd after his home is destroyed by the Drift.
* Jennifer Lopez as Shira, a female saber tooth tiger, Diego's wife and former first mate of Captain Gutt's pirate crew.
* Seann William Scott and Josh Peck as Crash and Eddie, two opposums and Ellie's adopted brothers.
* 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.
* Keke Palmer as Peaches, a young female woolly mammoth, Manny and Ellie's daughter and Julian's wife.
* Adam DeVine as Julian, a woolly mammoth and Peaches's husband.
* Wanda Sykes as Granny, an aging ground sloth, Sid's grandmother and Teddy's girlfriend.
* Melissa Rauch as Francine, a ground sloth who has a close relationship with Sid as she is his ex-girlfriend and the minor antagonist.
* Michael Strahan as Teddy, a fearless rabbit, a resident of Geotopia and Granny's boyfriend.
* Nick Offerman as Gavin, a Dino-Bird of the herd and the father of Roger and Gertie.
* Stephanie Beatriz as Gertie, a Dino-Bird of the herd and Gavin's daughter.
* Max Greenfield as Roger, a Dino-Bird of the herd and Gavin's son.
* Chris Wedge as Scrat, a saber tooth squirrel.

### Additional Voices

* Chris Campbell
* Holly Dorff
* Moosie Drier
* Jason Fricchione
* Jackie Gonneau
* Rif Hutton
* Hope Levy
* Terence Matthews
* Edie Mirman
* Ashley Peldon
* Juan Pope
* Byron Thames
* Ruth Zalduondo
* Dave Zyler

## 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.[23] 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.[24] 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.[25] 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.[25] 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*.[26]

## 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 Studios' *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.

## Reception

### 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.[38] 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, resulted in a $53 million write-down for both Blue Sky and Fox.

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).[41][45] In France, it opened amidst the 2016 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, 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 Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 18% based on 118 reviews and an average rating of 4.15/10. 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 *Collision Course* as the worst-reviewed of all the five films 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* 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."[53] 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* 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."

### Audience Response

Audiences are very mixed-to-negative about this film. Some like it, while tons of fans hate this film. Some would even go as far at to say that this film doesn't even exist in the *Ice Age*continuity. It holds a 39% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The film earned a "B+" from CinemaScore. Many fans consider it the weakest *Ice Age*film and that not even Buck could save this film. However, this film was yet to become a cult classic.

## Future

### Possible sequel

On the possibility of a sequel, co-director Galen T. Chu stated in June 2016 that there were some ideas for the sixth installment. 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.

### Spin-off

On October 25, 2019, after the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, it was announced that a spin-off centered on Buck was in development for Disney+.

**Upcoming:** *The Pixelators: Supercharged* (2023)