Emma Stone won Best Actress at the Venice International Film Festival. (Photo : Getty Images)
"The Croods," the hit 2013 animated film starring Emma Stone, is no longer getting a sequel despite the good ratings and reviews that it received when it was released.
According to Variety, DreamWorks Animation and its new parent studio, Universal, have cancelled the follow-up film of "The Croods." The news comes after DWA was acquired by Comcast in April this year, giving Universal full authority of the animation studio. Sources of the outlet said that problems were already present even before DWA moved from 20th Century Fox to Universal.
The film grossed over $500M in the international box office in 2013, making at a lucrative franchise for the studio. Back in August, DWA hired the Hageman brothers ("The Lego Movie") to rewrite the script for "The Croods 2." But the studio had trouble in finding a concrete follow-up story for the project to continue, Collider reported.
It was earlier set for a Dec. 22, 2017 release but was pushed back to 2018.
Directed by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders, "The Croods" follows a prehistoric-set family that deals with problems small and large. In addition to Stone, it also starred a roster of A-list voice cast including Nicholas Cage (Ghost Rider), Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), and Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich).
Although Universal has scrapped the production for "The Croods 2," it does not mean that it is gone for good. A source claims that it is still possible that the property may be revisited in the future.
"'The Croods' is still very much in the DreamWorks catalog. It's not unheard of that it might be something someone takes a look at in the future," said the source.
DreamWorks Animation is set to release a couple of new original films in the near future, such as The Boss Baby and Captain Underpants in 2017. It will be followed by the hotly-awaited, How to Train Your Dragon 3 in 2018.
