The Croods: A New Age

DreamWorks announced the sequel in April 2013 with Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco, cancelled it on 11 November 2016 and reopened it in September 2017. Joel Crawford took over the next month, his first feature. The voice of Dawn changed too: Kelly Marie Tran replaced Kat Dennings in October 2019. Crawford’s most visible change was in the script: instead of making Eep and Dawn rivals over a boy, he wrote them as friends, and the finale rests on that, with the women of both families acting together. The price is that the walled garden comedy of manners gives way late on to a rescue adventure. Designs were simplified next to the first film and rendered with MoonRay, and the hand drawn two dimensional inserts came from William Salazar this time rather than James Baxter. The pandemic pushed most of the animation into the crew’s homes, and Crawford says half the picture was finished that way. Cinemas had it on 25 November 2020, digital rental on 18 December. It was a Golden Globe nominee for animated feature, an award Soul won. A good fit if you do not mind the film changing register midway, trading manners comedy for a monster chase. Not for anyone who wants the rough, unpolished look of the first Croods, because the design here is deliberately flatter.