The Croods


The Croods is a 2013 American computer-animated adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was written and directed by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders, and stars the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman, and Randy Thom. The film is set in a fictional prehistoric Pliocene era known as "The Croodaceous" when a caveman's position as a "Leader of the Hunt" is threatened by the arrival of a prehistoric genius who comes up with revolutionary new inventions as they trek through a dangerous but exotic land in search of a new home.
The film premiered at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival on February 15, 2013, and was released in the United States on March 22. As part of the distribution deal, this was the first DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by 20th Century Fox, since the end of their distribution deal with Paramount Pictures. The Croods received generally positive reviews, and proved to be a box office success, earning more than $587 million on a budget of $135–175 million. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. The film launched a new franchise, with a television series, Dawn of the Croods, which debuted on December 24, 2015 on Netflix. A sequel directed by Joel Crawford is set to be released on December 23, 2020.

Plot

A cave family called the Croods survives a natural disaster, due to the overprotective nature of their stubborn patriarch Grug. The only one who questions the family's sheltered life is his teenaged daughter Eep, who frequently disobeys her father's orders out of curiosity, which he finds dangerous. The family spend time sheltered in their cave.
One night, while her family is asleep, Eep sneaks out when she sees what she discovers to be a torch of fire, and she encounters an inventive modern human boy named Guy and his pet sloth Belt. He warns her of an impending apocalypse and offers to take her with him, but concerned for her family, Eep stays, getting a shell horn from him to blow in case she needs his help. Reuniting with her frantic family, Eep tries to tell them what Guy told her, but fearing things that are "different" and "new", they destroy her horn.
A massive earthquake then destroys their home, and to avoid carnivores and omnivores, they descend into a tropical forest that lay hidden behind their cave all the time. Encountering a "Macawnivore", a brightly colored feline with nyctophobia that Eep's grandmother Gran dubs "Chunky", the family flees him until he is scared off by swarms of piranhakeets that devour a ground whale. Using another horn, Eep calls to Guy who rescues them from the birds with his fire. After a great deal of confusion regarding their first contact with fire, Grug imprisons Guy in a log until he can guide them somewhere safe. Guy suggests the Croods go to a mountain where there are caves because the Crood family desires a cave. Grug refuses at first, but he decides to go with the promise of a cave. The other Croods were worried that they would get tired and bicker, but Grug doesn't listen.
When Grug finds a bird, he decides to hunt its egg for dinner. Eep also wants to hunt the egg, but as she's grounded, she gets replaced by her younger brother Thunk, who is too tired to hunt it. Grug and Thunk fail to capture the bird's egg, so they get a scorpion instead. During a fight between Thunk and Gran, Eep notices Guy moving away and stops him. Guy wants Eep to stop, so he asks her hunt with him. Eep goes with Guy to hunt, while the others fight among themselves.
Eep and Guy make a trap in order to capture the bird but fail when the two get tangled up, and the bird doesn't step in the trap. The bird captures the puppet with Guy in it and throws him up in the sky until he lands on the log. Grug asks Guy where Eep is, and he finds her being chased by the bird. Grug gets angry but doesn't notice that he was about to step on the trap, so Eep pushes him out to save her father. The bird steps on the trap and is thrown up in the sky until it crash-lands on the ground.
The Croods cook the bird, and Guy is tied up with a root chain on his left leg. After dinner, Grug tells them a story, which is based on a true story, about a tiger who is similar to Eep and embarrasses Eep. Guy says that his stories never end up like Grug's stories, so the Croods decide to listen to Guy's story much to their interest. Guy tells them about a tiger who flew into a place with more suns in the sky called “Tomorrow”. Guy also tells them stories of "Tomorrow", a heaven of safety where he is headed and in which curiosity is not deadly as Grug has claimed.
Outrunning the destruction, Guy is trusted enough to be let out of the log, and he gives the Croods rudimentary shoes to walk over the harsh landscape as he leads them to a mountain in which he says will be safe. After the family is split up in a labyrinth of tunnels, all but Grug manage to escape by coming up with ideas of overcoming obstacles in their paths. At his treetop home, Grug sees the impression Guy is leaving on his family, and he becomes jealous, especially when he realizes that Eep has fallen in love with Guy. Attempting to invent things like Guy, Grug only further embarrasses himself and drives his family further away from him.
Reaching the mountain, Grug tries to force his family to hide out in a cave, but they resist, telling him that they can't live in caves anymore, that they don't want to survive but to live. This enrages Grug, who places blame on Guy and tries to beat the answer out of him, but they both end up in a tar flow where Grug learns that Guy's family had perished in one. Touched by that tragic story, Grug has a change of heart and realizes that Guy's method of survival is better for his family, and so decides to work with him, and they lure Chunky into a trap to free themselves. The family reunites, then flees a massive cataclysm as the land begins to violently rip apart.
The family is cut off from their destination by a continental split, but Grug, realizing the errors of his ways, decides to throw his family to safety. He shares an invention he calls a "hug" with Eep, briefly before sending her across as well. Cut off from his family, Grug finds a cave for safety, where he encounters Chunky, who is truly a frightened and sweet feline, and he comes up with an idea to getting them across the chasm. Using a ribcage and the Piranhakeets to fashion a simple airship, Grug manages to send themselves, and several animals the family had encountered during their journey, across the chasm, reuniting with his family once again. He apologizes to them all and promises to never be so overbearing again.
Later, the Croods have settled on a vast beach, where every day they can follow the light to "Tomorrow".

Voice cast

The film was announced in May 2005, under the working title Crood Awakening, originally a stop motion film being made by Aardman Animations as a part of a "five film deal" with DreamWorks Animation. John Cleese and Kirk DeMicco had been working together on a feature based on Roald Dahl's story The Twits, a project that never went into production.
DreamWorks got a copy of their script and liked it, and invited Cleese and DeMicco over to take a look at the company's ideas to see if they found something they would like to work with. They chose a basic story idea about two cavemen on the run, an inventor and a luddite, and wrote the first few drafts of the script. In January 2007, with the departure of Aardman, the rights for the film reverted to DreamWorks. Aardman, however, continued experimenting with the idea of a Stone Age-themed story into Early Man which would eventually be released in 2018.
In March 2007, Chris Sanders, one of the writers of Mulan and writer/director of Lilo & Stitch, joined DreamWorks to direct the film, with intentions to significantly rewrite the script. In September 2008, it was reported that Sanders took over How to Train Your Dragon putting Crood Awakening on hold, and thus postponing its original schedule for a year to a then planned March 2012. The film's final title, The Croods, was revealed in May 2009, along with new co-director, Kirk DeMicco. In March 2011, the film got another delay, being pushed back a year to March 1, 2013, and finally settled at March 22.

Release

The Croods had its world premiere in the out of competition section at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival on February 15, 2013. It was released in the United States on March 22, 2013. The film was the first feature film to be shown in the 4DX format, featuring strobe lights, tilting seats, blowing wind and fog and odor effects in Hungary, which is shown at the Cinema City theater in Budapest, Hungary. It was also the first film in China to be distributed by Oriental DreamWorks, a film production and distribution company founded in 2012 by DreamWorks Animation and Chinese investment companies.

Home media

The Croods was released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 1, 2013. The DVD and Blu-ray comes with a Belt plush toy. As of February 2015, 9.0 million home entertainment units were sold worldwide.

Reception

Critical response

The Croods received mostly positive reviews from critics. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 71% based on 142 reviews, with an average score of 6.53/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "While it may not be as evolved as the best modern animated fare, The Croods will prove solidly entertaining for families seeking a fast-paced, funny cartoon adventure." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, the film was given a score of 55 based on 30 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "A visually dazzling animated adventure with a well chosen voice cast is hampered by lackluster humor and a meandering story." Tom Russo of The Boston Globe gave the film two and a half out of four, saying, "Had the movie figured out a way to stay the less cliched course, it might have helped the DreamWorks oeuvre take steps toward Pixar's emotional resonance."
Keith Staskiewicz of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C+, and wrote in his review, "A handful of adrenalizing sequences of animated anarchy can't save this story from feeling overly primitive." David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called the film, "Further back on the evolutionary chain than the Flintstones, and also lagging in the comedy stakes, this sweet Stone Age clan nonetheless will captivate the youngsters." Leslie Felperin of Variety found that, "The main problem with the film is that the script simply isn't very funny, and its various subplots never quite mesh satisfyingly together."
Tirdad Derakhshani of The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying, "The movie is well edited and lean, a fast paced, action filled bit of froth that manages to be diverting and surprisingly fun." Lisa Kennedy of The Denver Post gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "It captures the wonder of discovery time and time again. And the filmmakers have a hoot playing with the Croods' encounters with, as well as their misunderstandings of, all things new." Laremy Legel of Film.com gave the film a B, saying "How to Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch are completely indicative of the experience you'll have with The Croods, which is to say a supremely positive one."

Box office

The Croods grossed $187.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $400 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $587.2 million. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $106.5million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. It is the eleventh highest grossing 2013 film, and the fourth highest grossing 2013 animated film. It became the second highest grossing original DreamWorks Animation film, behind Kung Fu Panda. As of January 2014, it is the 89th-highest-grossing film, and the 21st-highest-grossing animated film.
In North America, the film earned $11.6 million on its opening day. On its opening weekend, the film topped the box office with $43.6 million from 4,046 locations, a vast improvement over the DreamWorks Animation's directly preceding release Rise of the Guardians, yet still below some of the studio's other original films, like Megamind and How to Train Your Dragon.
Outside North America, the film topped the box office during its first weekend with $62.4 million. It opened at number one in 54 countries, with the biggest openings achieved in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, Russia and the CIS, China, and Mexico.
In total grosses, the film's biggest market was China with $63.3 million, becoming the highest grossing original animated film, surpassing DreamWorks Animation's film Kung Fu Panda. In addition, the film earned $43.1 million in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, $28.6 million in Russia and the CIS, $27.7 million in Mexico, and $23.8 million in Australia. Earning a total of $400 million, it is the highest grossing 2013 film distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Accolades

Soundtrack

, who previously worked with Sanders on Lilo & Stitch, composed the film's original score, which was released digitally on March 15, 2013, by Relativity Music Group, and on CD on March 26, 2013, by Sony Classical. The soundtrack also includes "Shine Your Way", an original song performed by Owl City and Yuna.

Video games

A video game based on the film, titled The Croods: Prehistoric Party!, was released on March 19, 2013. Developed by Torus Games, Bandai Namco, and published by D3 Publisher, it was adapted for Wii U, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo DS. The game enables players to take the members of the Croods family on an adventure through 30 party style mini games. It received mainly negative reviews.
A mobile game, titled The Croods, which is a village building game, was developed and published by Rovio, the creator of Angry Birds. It was released on March 14, 2013 to the iOS and Android platforms. It received negative reviews from critics, with Metacritic giving it a 40 out of 100.

Expanded franchise

Sequel

On April 17, 2013, DreamWorks Animation had started developing a sequel to the film, with Sanders and DeMicco set to return as directors. According to DeMicco, the sequel would focus on Ugga and motherhood, making it "the first chapter of society," expanding on the first film, which is about "the last chapter of the caveman."
On September 9, 2013, it had been confirmed that Cage, Stone, and Reynolds would reprise their roles in the sequel. On June 12, 2014, it was announced that the sequel would be released on November 3, 2017. On September 21, 2014, the film's release date was delayed to December 22, 2017. On May 21, 2015, Leslie Mann and Kat Dennings had joined the voice cast. Mann would lend her voice to Hope Betterman, an upscale mother of the rival family, while Dennings would voice her daughter, Dawn. It was also confirmed that Keener and Duke would also reprise their roles. On August 9, 2016, nearing NBCUniversal/Comcast's impending acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, 20th Century Fox removed the film from its release schedule. The film would be instead released by Universal Pictures sometime in 2018. On August 23, 2016, it was announced that The Lego Movie and Hotel Transylvania co-writers Kevin and Dan Hageman will rewrite the script.
On November 11, 2016, DreamWorks announced that production for the sequel was cancelled. According to reports, there had been doubts about proceeding with the project before Universal's acquisition of DreamWorks, and it was DreamWorks' decision to cancel the film. Following this, DeMicco, the co-director of the first film, left DreamWorks to work as director on Vivo for Sony Pictures Animation. On September 19, 2017, DreamWorks and Universal announced that the film was back in production with a release date of September 18, 2020. It was also confirmed that the original actors would reprise their roles. On October 18, 2017, it was announced that Joel Crawford will direct the film with Mark Swift serving as producer. On October 5, 2018, it was announced that Peter Dinklage had joined the cast to voice Phil Betterman. On April 12, 2019, the film's release date was delayed to December 23, 2020. On October 29, 2019, DreamWorks announced that Kelly Marie Tran had replaced Dennings as Dawn while Mann was still confirmed to be part of the cast.
Production was able to continue remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic with on-site work at the DreamWorks lot suspended.

Television series

A traditionally-animated television series based on the film, titled Dawn of the Croods, debuted on December 24, 2015 on Netflix. As none of the original cast members that voiced the Croods family in the film reprise their roles in the series, the voice cast consists of Dan Milano as Grug, Stephanie Lemelin as Eep, Cree Summer as Ugga, A.J. Locascio as Thunk, Laraine Newman as Gran, and Grey Griffin as Sandy.