Animated sequel The Croods: A New Age isn’t just one of the very few major titles left on the 2020 release schedule, but it’s also the only one that’s been moved forward on the calendar, which is an incredible rarity in a year when most other would-be blockbusters have packed up entirely and fled to 2021.
That’s especially good going when you consider that the project was once abandoned entirely despite the first installment raking in almost $590 million at the box office. If you’ll recall, The Croods 2 was first announced just a month after the original hit theaters in March 2013, but due to some creative turmoil and a series of delays, it was canceled altogether in November 2016.
However, less than a year later, it was resurrected and finally started to gather some momentum, and it will now arrive next month, albeit with the chances of box office success having been drastically reduced by the effects of the Coronavrius pandemic ravaging the theatrical industry. That being said, DreamWorks must be confident in The Croods: A New Age, because we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones that told us Disney were working on live-action remakes of Bambi and Robin Hood months before either was announced – that a third movie is already being nudged towards active development.
Animated family films are becoming increasingly expensive to produce, and the first Croods came in at a pricey $175 million, while the sequel will no doubt be even more costly given the troubles that it’s suffered. There’s every chance that a third entry will ultimately depend on how The Croods: A New Age fares at the box office, then, and based on how things are going so far this year, there’s absolutely no guarantee of anything approaching strong numbers. Still, the studio seems confident and hopefully, they film will perform alright when it drops next month.