Merrick here...

An AICN reader called, simply, The Collaborator, dropped us a line offering some details on the next ICE AGE movie.

I'm not referring to ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS (trailer HERE) which hits theaters early July. We're talking about the film after that.

Didn't know there was one after that? I didn't either, honestly. Read on...

I haven't seen this reported anywhere, so hopefully this is of some interest.

Even though Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs hasn't even hit theaters yet, it seems a fourth Ice Age film has been well underway or the past few months. [SOURCE'S CONNECTION TO PROJECT DELETED BY AICN] friend of mine says the 4th installment sees Manny, Sid, Diego, Ellie and Scrat frozen solid and accidentally defrosted in a museum in present day.

At this stage the film is being called "Ice Age Th4w". Guess that sees the end of any future Ice Age movies being set in prehistoric times but this could be an interesting new direction for the franchise.

This idea also mirrors recent events where a perfectly preserved (Frozen) baby woolly mammoth was discovered on a Siberian riverbank earlier this year.

Call me
The Collaborator

To the best of our knowledge, this is The Collaborator's first contribution to AICN (and hopefully won't be the last). As such, consider the above info as originating from an untried source until we learn more.

This said: shaking up the series like this...taking well established characters and throwing them such a whopping curve ball...could either be a truly brilliant and fun stroke, or a complete disaster. Interested to see how this pans out...