The best thing about the Ice Age franchise for me (and for no doubt many others) has to be Scrat, the poor prehistoric saber-toothed squirrel who will do absolutely anything to get just an acorn.

For three movies past now, I’ve been willing him onto reaching his goal! Apple have released a new short for the fourth installment in the Ice Age franchise Ice Age: Continental Drift and if you’re a Scrat fan, you’re going to love it!

Ice Age: Continental Drift features voices from Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Queen Latifah, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lopez, Wanda Sykes, Aziz Ansari, Keke Palmer, Drake, Josh Gad, Alan Tudyk, Nick Frost, Joy Behar and is directed by Steve Martino and Michael Thurmeier.

Scrat’s nutty pursuit of the cursed acorn, which he’s been after since the dawn of time, has world-changing consequences – a continental cataclysm that triggers the greatest adventure of all for Manny, Diego and Sid. In the wake of these upheavals, Sid reunites with his cantankerous Granny, and the herd encounters a ragtag menagerie of seafaring pirates determined to stop them from returning home.

Come on Scrat, you can do it!

What today really needed was a new poster for the latest installement in a popular animated franchise and crikey – if the folks at Fox haven’t obliged.

Ice Age 4: Continental Drift reunites Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary in this new tale, which focuses on the character of Scrat. I’ve warmed to the other films in the series though I cant help but find some of the character designs a little offputting, Scrat for example looks like Rowan Atkinson has mated with a squirrel. And not an attractive squirrel.

But people love ‘em so why not throw caution to the wind and pump out another film?

Brace yourself to be hit in the synopsis,

One of filmdom’s most beloved trios – “Ice Age’s” Manny, Diego, and Sid – embark upon their greatest adventure after cataclysm sets an entire continent adrift.  Separated from the rest of the herd, they use an iceberg as a makeshift ship, which launches them on an epic seafaring quest. Manny and the gang are challenged like never before to become heroes and do the impossible, as they encounter exotic sea creatures, explore a brave new world, and battle ruthless pirates. Scrat’s reunion with his beloved but cursed acorn catapults him to places no prehistoric squirrel has gone before.

It’s really an update from the earlier promo image which surfaced last month, but can you spot the difference between this…

and this…

Apart from a nice new reflection and a deeper blue there’s this…

This…

I’m not taking a child anywhere near this.

One of the biggest animated success stories made outside of Disney or DreamWorks has been the Ice Age series, with each of the first three films earning more and more at the box office.

The teaser trailer for the fourth film, Ice Age: Continental Drift, landed back at the start of the year, and now the film’s first poster has arrived, courtesy of Focus On Animation.

Continental Drift is co-directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier, the former of which directed 2008’s Horton Hears a Who! and the latter of which co-directed the third film in the series, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. And it’s been co-written by Michael Berg, who co-wrote the first and third films; Jason Fuchs, who makes his writing feature debut; and Mike Reiss, who co-wrote the third film and The Simpsons Movie.

It’s always good bringing back the writers and directors to continue their work with a series’ next instalments, so having some of the writers and directors back is surely a good sign. And of course, the Ice Age films are well known for their terrific cast, and Continental Drift promises a number of big names.

Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Chris Wedge, Queen Latifah, Josh Peck, and Seann William Scott will all be reprising their roles from the previous films, and added to the new instalment are Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Frost, Alan Tudyk, Heather Morris, Aziz Ansari, and Nicki Minaj.

I must confess that I’m still yet to see Dawn of the Dinosaurs, but I did love the first two things, and fully anticipate the fourth film being another solid comedy family film success. The third film made almost $900m. from a $90m. budget, so there’s clearly still a huge market for the series.

The poster looks to be American, announcing the release date as 13^th July, but we here in the UK can look forward to getting it a week earlier on 6^th July next year. That does, however, mean that it will be going up against The Amazing Spider-Man that weekend, which is a bit of a mistake in my opinion, since that will no doubt be a 12A and can thus pull the younger audience as well. But here’s to hoping that they’ll both do great in the cinema. We might see that release date pushed back a week, though not much more, since we’ve also got The Dark Knight Rises coming out at the end of July next year – so much to look forward to next summer! Without further ado, here’s the first poster. As usual, click to enlarge.

Ice Age – quite possibly the least historically accurate franchise ever – is set to return with a fourth instalment, currently subtitled Continental Drift.

Variety‘s report indicates that the acorn-starved actions of Scrat will trigger a chain reaction which ultimately reunites Sid the sloth with his family.

Along with the usual assortment of prehistoric plot devices, this means that directors Steve Martino and Michael Thurmerier have a family of sloths to cast.

Cue the signing of Nick Frost, Nicki Minaj, Joy Behar, JB Smoove, Heather Morris, Josh Gad, Alan Tudyk and Kunal Nayyar who will join franchise favourites Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, Seann William Scott, Wanda Sykes, Aziz Ansari, Drake and Josh Peck for another dose of textbook defying antics.

20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios have set a July 6, 2012 release date for Continental Drift.

Jeremy Renner (The Town), Jennifer Lopez (Shall We Dance), Wanda Sykes (Over the Hedge), Keke Palmer (Akeelah and the Bee), Aziz Ansari (Funny People) and Aubrey Graham (Charlie Bartlett) have joined the voice cast of Ice Age: Continental Drift.

The new additions will star opposite returning cast members Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Jennette McCurdy and Will Hedge in the fourth instalment of 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios’ hugely successful animation franchise.

One of filmdom’s most beloved trios - Manny, Diego, and Sid – embark upon their greatest adventure after cataclysm sets an entire continent adrift. Separated from the rest of the herd, they use an iceberg as a makeshift ship, which launches them on an epic seafaring quest to find the others. Manny and the gang are challenged like never before to become heroes and do the impossible, as they encounter exotic sea creatures, explore a brave new world, and battle ruthless pirates. And Scrat’s reunion with his cursed nut catapults him to places no prehistoric squirrel has gone before.

Steve Martino (Horton Hears a Who) and Mike Thurmeier (Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs) will direct from a screenplay co-written by Michael Berg, Jason Fuchs and Mike Reiss.

Ice Age: Continental Drift will be released on July 13, 2012.

Source: THR

THR is reporting that Jim Carrey is going to be making a cameo appearance in the finale of season seven of The Office over in the States. If memory serves, this will be Carrey’s first television role in well over a decade, since his part(s) in the ’90s TV series, In Living Color, created by Keenen Ivory Wayans, and starring no less than five of the Wayans family (Keenen included), Jamie Foxx, and Jennifer Lopez.

For most people, myself included, Jim Carrey is a comedy genius, and there’s no doubt that he’ll be a brilliant addition to the already high-profile line-up of guest stars for the season finale. He’ll be joining Ricky Gervais (naturally from the British original), Will Ferrell (Anchorman), James Spader (Boston Legal), Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond), Catherine Tate (The Catherine Tate Show), and one of my all-time favourite actors on television, Will Arnett (Arrested Development).

Steve Carell has been the lead character, Michael Scott, in all of the show’s seven series to date, but announced a few months ago that he would be leaving the show, and his final episode, entitled Goodbye, Michael, is airing in an extended version on NBC this Thursday. Despite Carell’s exit, the series has been renewed for an eighth season, with no announcement yet as to who will be filling the actor’s shoes. According to THR, the big names that are starring in the series finale, which will air on 19th of May in America, will be interviewing on the show for the management position left open with Michael’s departure.

Of all the names on the bill, Carrey’s is undoubtedly the least likely to fill the open position, which is a good thing in my eyes. I think Carrey is a brilliant actor, whose talent is probably best served through starring in films. His upcoming film, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, looks surprisingly good, and I think it’s the kind of film that could only really work with Carrey in the lead. And his performance in Yes Man back in 2008 was one of my favourites throughout his brilliant career, and I’m hoping we have more films like that to look forward to in the future.

The Office’s season finale will almost certainly be riotous comedic affair, and much of the best of that comedy will likely be coming from Carrey and Arnett. Putting all these big names together in the same hour-long episode is all but a sure thing, and should make for an excellent end to the season. Whether or not Carell’s replacement will be made clear in the finale awaits to be seen.

Our friends from Sky earlier released some new character banners from Rio which you can see here but hidden beneath the banners was a lovely new teaser trailer for Ice Age 4 aka Ice Age: Continental Drift.

As Sky mention,the movie isn’t scheduled for release until 2012 but this awesome new trailer shows us that we can expect more of the same from this fourth movie with the teaser focusing on Scrat (Chris Wedge). Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary all return as their respective characters with Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier directing.

This new trailer sees Scrat take a jouney to the Earth’s core to retrieve his acorn. Find out if he gets it by watching the below!

I’ve loved all three of the previous Ice Age films so roll on a fourth I say!!

We rather enjoyed Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and unlike the faltering Shrek series there’s an actual sense of expectation for this new chapter.

20th Century Fox and Blue Sky have great confidence in the prehistoric animation, so much so that there’s news this morning that Ice Age 4 is on its way.

Subtitled Continental Drift, this film has a release date of Summer 2012 so it will sit nicely alongside the other projected releases for Batman 3 and the SpiderMan reboot.

Variety shouted this one out, and there are no other details at present, but if it can repeat the huge box office return of the third film then this won’t be the last time we see Scratte, Ellie, Diego and Sid.

In order to stand out from the crowd of 3D animated fare currently assaulting the box office you need to create a cast of charming characters in a world that is unique, throw in a witty script with lots of visual invention. The bar 20th Century and director and Ivce Age veteran Carlos Saldanha have to overcome has been set very high with the likes of  Up and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs this year alone, and Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, released this week on Blu-ray and DVD, succeeds on many levels.

When the film was released earlier in the year we reviewed it here, and it was a positive review. The film’s cast has a great hold on the characters and the visual fizz and momentum makes for an eye popping experience. It’s a wild ride that I found a lot to like, there was charm and the new characters and locations capture the essence of what makes Ice Age an enjoyable series. There are a few too many Flintstones lite anachronisms for my liking but there’s enough here to keep children of all ages happy.

The Blu-ray is really where this film shines – plainly put: This film looks incredible, even for Blu-ray standards, from the wide open landscapes and misty, ghostly caverns down to the intricate character models – the clarity of detail and colour is amazing – this is one to show off the new player.

The special features are the typical mix between the making of docs, abandoned scenes and cast interviews, the full listing is below and there’s so much to enjoy. The Blu-ray is bundled with a DVD copy and a digital version to watch ‘on the go’.

It’s a shot in the arm for the Ice Age series and with the digital acumen of Blue Sky Studios ever increasing it won’t be too long before the series gets a fourth installment.

To celebrate the launch of Ice Age 3 on Blu-ray and DVD 20th Century Fox enlisted the help of world famous street painter Edgar Muller to create a record breaking anamorphic street scene featuring the Ice Age characters – check it out below.

Blu-ray Special Features

• Disc One:
  • Blu-ray Disc Feature Film
  • Ice Age Storybook Maker
  • Buck’s Survival Guide: Fun Fossilized Factoids
  • Evolution Expedition
  • Buck: From Easel to Weasel
  • Unearthing the Lost World
  • Two Unfinished Deleted Scenes
  • Walk the Dinosaur Music Video
  • Animated Shorts
    • Surviving Sid
    • Gone Nutty ““ Scrat’s Missing Adventure
    • No Time for Nuts
  • Falling for Scratte
  • Filmmaker Commentary
  • Fox Movie Channel Presents In Character with Ray Romano
  • Fox Movie Channel Presents In Character with Queen Latifah
  • Fox Movie Channel Presents Making a Scene

Disc Two:

• Digital Copy ““ a copy of the film allowing a one-time download for watching Ice Age 3 on the go

DVD Special Features:

• Buck’s Survival Guide: Fun Fossilized Factoids
• Walk the Dinosaur Music Video
• Falling for Scratte
• Buck: From Easel to Weasel
• Digital Copy