Disney Shuttering Fox's Animation Arm Blue Sky Studios Known For 'Ice Age,' 'Rio' & More

We have some sad news to share from the world of animation as Deadline reports that Disney is closing down Blue Sky Studios, 20th Century Fox‘s once successful animation company. It’s seemingly suffering a similar fate to Fox 2000, a live-action branch of 20th Century Studios that was axed post-merger as similar projects were shifted over to Searchlight Pictures.

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The company is likely best known for their “Ice Age” films along with animated features such as “Robots,” “Rio,” “The Peanuts Movie.” and the Academy Award-nominated “Ferdinand.” Their most recent release was the Will Smith and Tom Holland romp “Spies Like Us.”

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Deadline stating their last day of operation will be in April and suggest that Blue Sky employees might have future opportunities at open positions at other internal studios. They point out that the Blue Sky Studios IP will remain at Disney with an “Ice Age” series currently in the works for their streaming service Disney+. 

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Considering that Disney has heavy-hitters like Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, they likely didn’t see the need to keep Blue Sky Studios; however, this looks like another casualty of the merger between Disney and 21st Century Fox. It’s never a good thing when a production company goes under, and people lose their livelihoods. 

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There is an expectation that with Disney+’s popularity that they’ll be asking the film divisions to provide animated content for the streamer in a speedy manner as they attempt to grow their animation stable. However, the fewer animation studios doing original projects is not a great thing for the animation industry as a whole. Perhaps, we’ll see former employees rally together on a new company.

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