The Oscar-winning animation company has announced it will be closing its doors with immediate effect.
As part of the Disney buyout of Fox, part of the acquisition including Fox’s animation wing, Blue Sky Studios, and today it has been announced that Disney will be closing this company’s doors, impacting on the jobs of 450 staff there.
In a statement to Deadline, a spokesperson for Disney had the following to say:
“Given the current economic realities, after much consideration and evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to close filmmaking operations at Blue Sky Studios.”
Blue Sky’s first movie came out in 2002, and in the almost two decades since then, they’ve had thirteen feature films hit the big screen, so we’ve decided to look back over their output over the years, and rank them from worst to best.
10. The four Ice Age sequels
The Meltdown, Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Continental Drift and Collision Course all got progressively worse, the only real redeeming factor in each of them being the Scrat interludes, playing out like high-concept Road Runner skits. But there is an Ice Age 6 on the way, due in 2022, which will mark the final Blue Sky movie to ever be released.
9. Rio 2
To put it simply, some movies just don’t need a sequel. Clearly just trying to be cool for the kids, the voice cast includes Jamie Foxx, will.i.am and Bruno Mars, in a movie that seemed more interested in the potential of the soundtrack than the movie itself.
8. Epic
Be honest, you’d completely forgotten this movie even existed, didn’t you? Because we know we did. With a voice cast ranging from Colin Farrell to Beyonce to Christoph Waltz to Pitbull, the problem with Epic was it truly felt like it didn’t know what it wanted to be, which is probably how it ended up so forgettable.
Clip via Fox UK
7. Robots
Hiring Robin Williams to voice a character in your animated movie is a no-brainer, but in this case, aside from the lovely visuals, there was little else to make Robots stand out. And even at that Williams seemed to be channeling is his off-kilter bat from Ferngully, as opposed to the joke-spewing iconic character Genie from Aladdin.
6. The Peanuts Movie
Based on a comic strip that began in 1950, this is a rare case of a big animated movie with practically zero famous names attached, instead focusing on why people loved Charlie Brown and co. in the first place. It ended up being very cute, but modern kids were left wondering who any of these characters actually were.
5. Ferdinand
One thing that can definitely be said about Blue Sky is that they come up with some random ideas to base their stories around, like this one: a pacifist bull runs away from his home town full of bullfighters to live on a farm. That’s it, that’s the plot! Still, between John Cena’s brilliant voice acting as the gentle bull, and the beautiful Spanish setting, it has become a bit of a hidden gem.
Clip via Fox Family
4. Ice Age
The first (and best) of the Ice Ages series has an eclectic voice cast – Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, and Denis Leary as the central trio of prehistoric besties – who discover a baby human and try to bring him back to his people. But this was also the movie that introduced us to the nut-loving Scrat, who really deserved his own movie.
3. Rio
Pixar actually cancelled one of their movies – Newt – because the plot was too similar to this one, which features two of the world’s last Macaws in the world, forced together for the sake of the species. Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway perfectly voiced the central couple, while the Brazilian setting made for a very colourful change of scenery.
2. Spies In Disguise
What initially felt like it was trying to elbow in on The Incredibles territory actually ended up much, much weirder, and all the better for it. Will Smith and Tom Holland bring the star-power, but this is all about those consistently funny pigeon jokes.
1. Horton Hears A Who!
With a voice cast including Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Carol Burnett, Will Arnett, Seth Rogen, Isla Fisher, and Amy Poehler, this was never going to be anything less than hilarious. And that is exactly what it is, with a manic, joke-a-second story that never lets up.
Clip via Secret Agent
Horton Hears A Who!, Spies In Disguise, Ice Age (and the sequels), Rio 2 (but not the first Rio), and Epic are all available to watch on Disney+ at the time of writing.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
