Ice Age
The prehistoric buddy comedy that put Blue Sky Studios on the map: a woolly mammoth, a sloth, and a saber-toothed tiger reluctantly team up to return a lost human baby to its tribe, while a nut-obsessed squirrel named Scrat wages an eternal, silent war against a single acorn. A surprise blockbuster that launched one of animation's biggest franchises.
Released March 15, 2002, Ice Age was the first feature from Blue Sky Studios, distributed by 20th Century Fox and directed by Chris Wedge. Set at the dawn of an ice age, it follows three mismatched animals — grumpy mammoth Manny (Ray Romano), motormouth sloth Sid (John Leguizamo), and treacherous saber-tooth Diego (Denis Leary) — who form an unlikely "herd" to return a human infant to its people.
Running alongside the main story is Scrat, a saber-toothed squirrel voiced by director Wedge, whose wordless, slapstick pursuit of an acorn became the film's breakout mascot. Made for roughly $59–65 million, Ice Age was a major hit, grossing $383.3 million worldwide, and it earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature (losing to Spirited Away).
The film established Blue Sky as a genuine competitor to Pixar and DreamWorks and launched a sprawling franchise — beginning with Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) and running through multiple sequels, shorts, and spin-offs. Scrat in particular became the series' silent trademark, a Looney Tunes-style figure recognizable far beyond the films themselves.
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