Ice Age [2002] (1 disc)

Random Trivia For This Title:

• Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Ralph Fiennes, Kiefer Sutherland, Toby Stephens, Kevin Spacey, Liam Neeson, Tommy Lee Jones, Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Tim Curry, Ian McKellen & Lance Henriksen were all considered for the role of Diego before Denis Leary was cast.
• Christopher Walken, Alan Rickman, Sam Elliott, James Gandolfini, Patrick Stewart & Michael Wincott were all considered for the role of Soto before Goran Visnjic was cast.
• Chris Miller was considered the role of Oscar.
• Cody Cameron was considered the role of Lenny.
• Johnny Depp, Pierce Brosnan, Kevin Kline, Robert De Niro, Albert Brooks, Nicolas Cage, Sylvester Stallone, Kevin Costner, Keith David, Bruce Willis, Jeff Bridges, Jim Belushi, Michael Keaton & Val Kilmer were all considered for the role of Manfred before Ray Romano was cast.
• Leonardo DiCaprio was considered the role of Sid.
• Brad Garrett was considered the role of Carl.
• On the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD of the film, Ray Romano calls the movie a "dramedy" and explains why the movie is both drama and comedy, and this is corroborated by director Chris Wedge in his own interview on the special features. Fox wanted a children's comedy, so Blue Sky took that direction, but kept the drama aspect a notable element of the movie, hence why the cast and crew refer to it as a "dramedy."
• Kristen Johnston voiced Sylvia in three deleted scenes.
• James Earl Jones and Ving Rhames were originally considered to play Manny.
• The "rhinos" in the movie are actually titanotheres (or brontotheres), mammals from the Oligocene period and are no relation to modern rhinos as they went extinct, several million years before the Ice Age depicted in the film. Ice Age rhinos looked more like modern rhinos, but covered with thick fur coats just like the mammoths.
• Supposedly the reason Don Bluth refused to make the film is when 20th Century Fox said they wanted it to be CG after the failure of 2D animation, Bluth refused due to his personal hate for fully CG animation and angrily walked away from the project.
• Writer Michael J. Wilson has stated on his blog that his daughter Flora came up with the idea for an animal that was a mixture of both squirrel and rat, naming it Scrat, and that the animal was obsessed with pursuing his acorn.
• When Sid, Diego, Manny and Roshan are in the ice tunnel, a Flying saucer appeared and Roshan makes a ["Star Trek"]-hand sign. (Vulcan Salute)
• The humans are not Homo-Sapiens, but Neanderthals. They never speak in the film.
• Though Scrat was designed as a fictional animal, in 2009, scientists in Argentina unearthed the remains of a small, extinct mammal resembling a shrew with long fangs. This animal was given the scientific name of "Cronopio Dentiacutus", in tribute to Scrat.
• All the actors were encouraged to improvise as much as possible to help keep the animation spontaneous.
• Despite the Dodo's less than brilliant survival instincts, they outlived all of the major character's species. Dodos were wiped out around the mid to late 17th century, whilst woolly mammoths (Manny) died out 10,000 years ago (a dwarf race existed until 1700 BC), ground sloths (Sid) are widely accepted to have become extinct some 2500 BC (although it has been proposed a small group survived till 1550 AD), and saber tooth tigers (Diego) were wiped out around 10,000 BC. Not even Neanderthals like Roshan and his father survived the Dodo.
• John Leguizamo tried 30 different voices for Sid. After viewing a documentary about sloths, he learned that they store food in their mouths; this led to him wondering what he would sound like with food in his mouth. After attempting to speak as if he had food in his mouth, he decided that it was the perfect voice for Sid.
• The drawings of characters during the end credit roll were all done by the children of the animators. The same is true of the picture that Sid draws of himself on a cave wall. Sid's drawing was done by 3 year old Will Shefelman, son of a story artist ^[?] Dan Shefelman. The story artist working on the scene was having difficulty drawing like a 3 year old so he consulted an expert.
• Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Knoxville, Dave Foley, Adam Sandler, Michael J. Fox, Ewan McGregor, Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Crystal, Eric Idle & Danny DeVito were all considered for the role of Sid before John Leguizamo was cast.
• According to an interview with Jay Leno on July 12th 2012, Denis Leary's character Diego originally died near the end of the film, which caused the test audience of children to burst into tears, so it was re-done.