Blue Sky Studios Animated Movies Ranked
2. The Peanuts Movie (2015)
Budget: $99million
Worldwide Box Office: $246.2million
Starring: Bill Melendez, Noah Schnapp, Kristin Chenoweth,
Praised for its close relationship to its much beloved source material and the manner in which Blue Sky animated the movie in a way more in-keeping with Peanuts’ original animation, The Peanuts Movie is the most underrated Blue Sky Studios film to date.
The 2nd lowest-grossing Blue Sky movie ever, The Peanuts Movie perhaps suffered financially from a lack of star power in the recording booth and a waning fandom surrounding its IP, as well as an ongoing lawsuit between Blue Sky animators and the studio itself concerning fair pay opportunities.
The film itself, however, was undeserving of such blemishes, as the quirky and wholesome tale at the centre of the movie was a joy to the limited amount of people who watched it, and the animation was entirely in-keeping with this mantra, making it a must see of Blue Sky Studios’ filmography.
1. Ice Age (2002)
Budget: $59million
Worldwide Box Office: $383.3million
Starring: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Chris Wedge, Jack Black, Alan Tudyk, Cedric the Entertainer, Jane Krakowski
When Blue Sky Studios came out of the box with Ice Age in 2002, the animated movie industry took a step back. The film was released on the cusp of the modern CG-animated era of Western animation that Antz (1998) and Shrek (2001) of Dreamworks Animation, Dinosaur (2000) of Disney Animation and only four feature-length Pixar movies – Toy Story (1995), A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Monsters, Inc. (2001) – had embraced previously. By releasing Ice Age in the midst of Disney and Dreamworks’ strong hold over the developing genre, Blue Sky and 20th Century Fox made a bold claim for space within the same realm, earning over $380million at the box office, the equivalent of around $526million when adjusted for inflation.
In this respect, the movie was of great significance, yet the original Ice Age sits atop of this list not only for its accomplishments but also for its art.
Ice Age, which was beautifully animated for a film of its time, was a fun and original children’s comedy that importantly featured some of the adult themes that had come to make much of the 1990s Disney renaissance so well respected.
Presenting a group of unlikely friends coming together to overcome the odds of their own collective extinction, Ice Age hit all of the right story beats and created intriguing and relatable moments upon which to ponder.
Perhaps most importantly, Ice Age was an animated film because it would’ve been impossible to create the movie by other means, therefore making it the truest form of modern, studio-driven animation, and the most memorable Blue Sky release to boot.
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Do you agree with our list? Which Blue Sky film do you think best represents the studio’s short-lived time in the spotlight? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more insightful movie lists.
Updated to include Spies in Disguise 12th July 2022. Originally published 27th November 2018.
