'Ice Age' director builds world of 'Robots' for '05

By Susan Wloszczyna
USA Today

Chris Wedge got the wacky cartoon animals out of his system. Now he's moving on to not-so-heavy metal.

Last year, the director of 20th Century Fox's computer-animated "Ice Age" cracked more than $176 million at the box office, nabbed an Oscar nomination with his first feature and gave the genre-dominating Disney and DreamWorks a run for their family-movie bucks.

How does he top the frigid antics of Manny the mammoth, Sid the sloth and that nutty squirrel-rat Scrat? The co-founder of Blue Sky Studios, the award-winning digital-animation company bought by Fox six years ago, has built a universe completely inhabited by mechanical people.

Wedge describes "Robots," a humorous collaboration with children's book author and illustrator William Joyce ("Rolie Polie Olie") due in March 2005, as "colorful, whimsical, clanky and fun."

Joyce's stories "have a golden era of Hollywood nostalgia to them," Wedge says. "The robots aren't futuristic or spacey transformers. They ooze personality and personify objects that we know in our world, whether a car, an outboard motor or a washing machine."

The voice cast includes Ewan McGregor as a young robot named Rodney, "who grows up on the outskirts of a huge metropolis and wants to work with the most influential character in the city, an inventor," Wedge says.

Halle Berry is Cappy, the hot executive 'bot who catches Rodney's eye. Stanley Tucci and Dianne Wiest speak for Rodney's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Copperbottom. Mel Brooks is the inventor known as Big Weld. Drew Carey and Amanda Bynes are part of the Rusties, a gang of obsolete robots.

In "Robots," "People are judged by what they are made of," Wedge says. "Many themes weave in and out that comment on the state of our technical snowballing and upgrading. We're not looking at what we've left behind."

The White Plains, N.Y.-based Blue Sky, which produced the Oscar-winning short "Bunny" in 1998, may have hit the big time but remains small and scrappy. While Wedge has a budget beyond the estimated $60 million for "Ice Age," "it's still far below the films that people compare us to," meaning other digitally animated hits like "Finding Nemo" or "Shrek."

But while money constraints led to "Ice Age" having a stylized look, the director vows that "Robots" will be more realistic. "We don't want it to look like animation, but to feel as if you went to a fantastic place and shot a film there."

While cranking out a feature, Blue Sky makes do with a cozy crew of up to 200, far fewer than those employed by competitors. Chris Meledandri, president of Fox animation who just signed Wedge to a five-year deal, says Wedge and his team "are incredibly gifted at finding the sharp, relatable comedy in any situation."

Wedge hasn't totally put talking animals on ice, however. He is co-producing a sequel to "Ice Age" and the original's popular breakout, the nut-obsessing Scrat, could go solo.

Says the man who sniffs, scratches and screeches for the jittery critter, "There is new Scrat potential out there."