While the Ice Age films have always kept to a strict sense of archaeological accuracy – no we can’t keep a straight face even just writing that – things seem to be headed in a science fiction-tinged flight of fantasy for the next entry into the massive franchise. Take a look at the prequel, starring, as ever, squat Chaplin-style rodent Scrat in Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe.
This time around, the acorn-addicted little critter finds himself in real trouble when, in his pursuit of somewhere to hide his latest bounty, he stumbles upon an alien spaceship frozen in a glacier. Managing to somehow activate the ship and go roaring into space, he ends up changing the course of an asteroid and sends it hurtling towards the planet below.
Which is where we’ll pick up the main Ice Age story, as Ray Romano’s Manny, John Leguizamo’s Sid and Denis Leary’s Diego spot shooting stars that are actually meteors headed for the planet’s surface. And that astronomical event will have a big impact on the characters, who have to save themselves and embark on a quest taking in new lands and fresh characters.
Ice Age: Collision Course, due in cinemas next year, has the returning likes of Romano, Leary, Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Simon Pegg, Keke Palmer, Wanda Sykes, and Jennifer Lopez joined by new voices Stephanie Beatriz, Adam DeVine, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Max Greenfield, Jessie J, Nick Offerman, Melissa Rauch, Michael Strahan and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Collision Course should arrive in July, and you can see Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe on the big screen in front of Snoopy And Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie, which is out in the UK on December 21.