Disney Shuts Down Fox's Animation House Blue Sky Studios

Disney has decided that it doesn’t need another animation production studio. When they bought Fox, they also bought the animation house Blue Sky Studios, which is behind the Ice Age franchise. Well, Disney has decided to shut the studio down.

Over the years, the animation studio pumped out 13 feature films and raked in $5.9 billion over the years that they’ve made movies. It’s not really a surprise that Disney shut down Blue Sky. I think the writing was on the wall. I’m actually more surprised that it took them so long. I imagine this past year trying to do business during the pandemic was the final nail in the coffin. Holding on to a third animation studio just didn’t make sense.

A studio spokesperson said in a statement, “Given the current economic realities, after much consideration and evaluation, we have made the difficult decision to close filmmaking operations at Blue Sky Studios.”

According to Deadline, the last day for Blue Sky will be in April, and it will affect 450 employees. Disney will be working with the employees to explore open positions at the other internal studios.

There is a series currently in the works based on Blue Sky’s Ice Age characters and that will be coming to Disney+. There was a film project in development titled Nimona, which was supposed to be released in 2022, but production on that is being stopped and the film will no longer be released. Nimona followed a young shapeshifter who teams up with a mad scientist named Lord Ballister Blackheart to expose the ruler of the kingdom.

All of the films under the Blue Sky’s library and IP will remain part of Disney, and there are no plans for another major studio to absorb Blue Sky’s employees and operations.

Some of Blue Sky’s films include Ice Age, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Ice Age: Meltdown, Rio, Rio 2, Ice Age: Collusion Course, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!, Ferdinand, Epic, Robots, The Peanuts Movie, and Spies in Disguise