Twentieth Century Fox Plans Ice Age Live Attraction

CENTURY CITY: Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products has partnered with SimEx-Iwerks for the Ice Age franchise’s new attraction, Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs: The 4-D Experience, set to debut in March at Merlin Entertainment’s two theme-park resorts.

Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs: The 4-D Experience will be at Alton Towers in the U.K. and Gardaland in Italy when it opens for the 2012 season. It is an immersive entertainment attraction that combines 3D film footage from the third movie in the franchise, with synchronized physical effects.

The opening of the attraction for the hit Ice Age franchise aligns with debut of the first Ice Age television holiday special, Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, airing in November, and the fourth installment of the film series, Ice Age: Continental Drift, in theaters in 3D in July 2012. The film features the voices of stars John Leguizamo, Ray Romano, Seann William Scott, Queen Latifah and Denis Leary, along with new characters voiced by Jennifer Lopez, Wanda Sykes, Keke Palmer, Aziz Ansari and Drake, among others.

“Our partnership with Merlin, the world’s number two and Europe’s number one operator, is a wonderful opportunity for the Ice Age franchise and a strong cornerstone for our strategy to develop location based entertainment opportunities that will deeply connect consumers with our brands through immersive experiences,” said Robert Marick, the executive VP of Fox Consumer Products. “The planned attractions and live events also create all-new incremental merchandising opportunities and sales for all of our partners.”

Mark Fisher, the chief development officer for Merlin’s Magic Making creative group, added: “We are delighted to be working with Fox. Merlin currently has 78 attractions around the world and we have developed a portfolio of very strong global and local brands of our own. It is therefore very important to us that where we forge additional partnerships, these both complement our own brands, and have very strong visitor appeal.”

Fisher continued, “…the fact that we are able to develop the link not just in an exciting new attraction, but also with themed hotel rooms and merchandising makes this a very attractive opportunity, which we hope to extend to other attractions in our portfolio in the future.”