Ice Age (lost original Don Bluth version of animated film; existence unconfirmed; early 2000s)

A poster for Ice Age.

Status: Existence Unconfirmed

Ice Age is an animated movie that was produced in 2002 by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Before the project was given to Blue Sky, the movie was allegedly given to legendary animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, along with Fox Animation Studios, but they turned down the offer.

Premise

Ice Age was going to be a less comedy driven movie like in the final cut, prompting instead to make it more drama-oriented, like The Land Before Time. The film was also going to be hand-drawn, not CGI animated. Not much else is known about Bluth's involvement in the first Ice Age.

History/Availability

The project was apparently given to both Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, around the time Titan A.E. was finishing production. However, because Titan A.E. bombed at the box office and Fox Animation Studios closed down, both Bluth and Goldman denied the project and was eventually picked up by Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha from Blue Sky Studios. It has been said that the reason why Don Bluth denied the project was for his extreme distaste for CGI animation, but that reason is most likely not the case.

There is no direct confirmation that Don Bluth ever worked on Ice Age. The only things that are "confirming" its existence are trivia pages on IMDb, TV Tropes and Wikia and an article on Wikipedia about Don Bluth's unrealized projects (which has now been deleted). All of these websites can easily be edited, so it is not known if Don Bluth actually worked on the movie.

However On August 5 2023, some possible concept art from 1998 were found on a website called gflanimationstudios.com, though still as of October 2023, no other info has resurfaced of the project

Gallery

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See Also

• Ice Age (lost original ending of animated film; 2002)

External Links

• An IMDb trivia page that mentions Bluth's Ice Age project. Retrieved 09 Oct '18
• Animat's "Animation Lookback" video on Don Bluth (part 4) where he mentions the Ice Age project. Retrieved 18 Oct '18