Blue Sky Studios, Inc. was an American computer animation studio based in Greenwich, Connecticut. It was founded on February 22, 1987, by Chris Wedge, Michael Ferraro, Carl Ludwig, Alison Brown, David Brown, and Eugene Troubetzkoy after their employer, MAGI, one of the visual effects studios behind Tron (1982), shut down. Using its in-house rendering software, the studio created visual effects for commercials and films before dedicating itself to animated film production. With a total of 17 feature films, it produced 13 feature films have distributed by 20th Century Studios, beginning with Ice Age in 2002. Its final feature film was Spies in Disguise in 2019. And now it produced 4 theatrical feature films have distributed by Buddy Studios, beginning with Ice Age: Portal Rift in 2022.
20th Century Studios distributed the films produced by Blue Sky Studios in theatrical markets, until its closure on April 10, 2021. On April 15, 2022, Buddy Studios distributed the films produced by Buddy Animation and Blue Sky Studios in theatrical markets alongside Buddy+ in streaming.
Blue Sky Studios was a subsidiary of 20th Century Animation until its acquisition by Disney, as part of their acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets in 2019. In February 2021, Disney announced that Blue Sky would be shut down in April 2021 citing the economic impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns on its business operations. The studio ceased all operations on April 10, 2021.
Ice Age and Rio were the studio's most commercially successful franchises, while Robots (2005), Horton Hears a Who! (2008), The Peanuts Movie (2015), and the aforementioned Spies in Disguise were among its most critically praised films. Scrat, a character from the Ice Age franchise, was the studio's mascot.
History[]
TBA
Filmography[]
Theatrical films[]
Released[]
| No. | Title | Release date | Distributor/Co-production with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20th Century Studios era (2002-2019) | |||
| 1 | Ice Age | March 15, 2002 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation |
| 2 | The Wainscott Weasel | March 14, 2003 | |
| 3 | Elysium | July 21, 2003 | |
| 4 | Baya to Gaya | March 13, 2004 | |
| 5 | Santa Calls | December 15, 2004 | |
| 6 | Robots | March 11, 2005 | |
| 7 | Ice Age: The Meltdown | March 31, 2006 | |
| 8 | The Ugly Duckling and Me! | September 2, 2006 | |
| 9 | Ant-N-Grasshopper | March 2, 2007 | |
| 10 | Alvin and the Chimpunks | December 14, 2007 | |
| 11 | The Iguana Brothers | March 14, 2008 | |
| 12 | The Dragon Hunters | July 6, 2008 | |
| 12 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | July 1, 2009 | |
| 13 | Alvin and the Chimpunks 2 | December 21, 2009 | |
| Robots 2 | March 15, 2010 | ||
| 14 | Birds of Paradise | July 9, 2010 | |
| 15 | Rio | April 15, 2011 | |
| 16 | Alvin and the Chimpunks 3 | December 13, 2011 | |
| 17 | Ice Age: Continental Drift | July 13, 2012 | |
| 18 | Epic | May 24, 2013 | |
| 19 | Rio 2 | April 11, 2014 | |
| 20 | Strange Magic | March 4, 2015 | |
| 21 | X-Wing | May 15, 2015 | |
| 22 | Alvin and the Chimpunks 4 | November 6, 2015 | |
| 23 | Ice Age: Collision Course | July 22, 2016 | |
| 24 | Frogkisser! | July 25, 2017 | |
| 25 | Ferdinand | December 15, 2017 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation and Davis Entertainment |
| 26 | Anubis | March 23, 2018 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation and ImageMovers |
| 27 | The Ugly Duckling and Me 2! | July 30, 2018 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation and Futurikon |
| 28 | Elliot the Littlest Reindeer | November 3, 2018 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation |
| 29 | The Jungle Beat Movie | December 22, 2018 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation and Aardman Animations |
| 30 | Candy's | May 12, 2019 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation and Regency |
| 31 | Spies in Disguise | December 25, 2019 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation and Chernin Entertainment |
| 32 | Dragon Rider | July 14, 2020 | |
| 33 | Skulls | July 21, 2021 | |
| 34 | Ron's Gone Wrong | December 3, 2021 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation |
| Buddy Studios era (2022-present) | |||
| 35 | Dolphin Boy | April 2, 2022 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation |
| 36 | Candy's: Blue on the City | July 22, 2022 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation and Regency |
| 37 | Ice Age: Portal Rift | August 11, 2022 | Buddy Studios/Buddy Animation |
| 38 | Ferdinand 2 | December 24, 2022 | Buddy Studios/Buddy Animation and Davis Entertainment |
| 39 | Heroes | March 25, 2023 | Buddy Studios/Buddy Animation and Maximum Effort |
| 40 | Robots 2 | June 20. 2023 | Buddy Studios/Buddy Animation |
| 41 | Nimona | July 23, 2023 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation |
Upcoming[]
| No. | Title | Release date | Distributor/Co-production with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 42 | Foster | November 23, 2023 | Buddy Studios/Buddy Animation |
| 43 | Roger Rabbit's Adventures | February 18, 2024 | Buddy Studios/Buddy Animation, Amblin Entertainment and Touchstone Studios |
| 44 | Trouble | July 3, 2024 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation |
| 45 | Halloween Town | October 30, 2024 | Buddy Studios/Buddy Animation and Mandeville Films |
| 46 | Spies in Disguise 2 | December 20, 2024 | 20th Century Studios/20th Century Animation and Chernin Entertainment |
Streaming films[]
Every streaming films has distributed by Buddy+.
Released[]
| No. | Title | Release date | Co-production with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sid | May 24, 2022 | Buddy Studios and Buddy Animation |
| 2 | Blu: A Rio Story | October 15, 2022 | |
| 3 | The Archer Movie | April 13, 2023 | Buddy Studios, Buddy Animation, Buddy Violence Studios and Annapurna Pictures |
| 4 | Andy Samberg's Crossovers | July 15, 2023 | Buddy Studios, Buddy Animation and The Lonely Island |
Upcoming[]
| No. | Title | Release date | Co-production with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Dawn Of The Bread | September 12, 2023 | Buddy Studios, Buddy Animation, Davis Entertainment and 21 Laps Entertainment |
| 6 | Spoiler Alert | November 29, 2023 | Buddy Studios and Buddy Animation |
| 7 | The Beet Party | January 17, 2024 | Buddy Studios, Buddy Animation and ToonBox Entertainment |
| 8 | Fancy Nancy | September 28, 2024 | Buddy Studios and Buddy Animation |
Television specials[]
| Title | Release date | Network |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas | November 24, 2011 | Fox |
| Ice Age: The Great Egg-Scapade | March 20, 2016 |
Short films[]
| Title | Release date |
|---|---|
| Bunny | November 2, 1998 |
| Gone Nutty | November 26, 2002 |
| Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty | September 27, 2005 |
| No Time for Nuts | November 21, 2006 |
| Surviving Sid | December 9, 2008 |
| Scrat's Continental Crack-Up | December 25, 2010 |
| Scrat's Continental Crack-Up: Part 2 | December 16, 2011 |
| Umbrellacorn | July 26, 2013 |
| Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe | November 6, 2015 |
| Scrat: Spaced Out | October 11, 2016 |
Television series[]
| Title | Release date | Network(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Ice Age: Scrat Tales | April 13, 2022 | Disney+ |
| Robots: The Series | June 15, 2023 | Buddy+ |
Reception[]
TBA
See also[]
TBA