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This week’s The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild is the franchise’s sixth film installment. The film is a testament to the franchise’s lasting success which has now expanded to several mediums such as video games and television. Murphy’s Multiverse got to attend the press junket for the film which included director John C. Donkin and longtime producer Lori Forte.

Lori Forte explained why the team behind the franchise decided to give Buck Wild of all characters the spotlight for this film.

Buck is such a lovable character. We just adored him in the first movie and in Dawn of the Dinosaurs. And we always knew [Simon Pegg] wanted to do something more and so we did. We found another way of bringing him back in Collision Course. But it just felt like he deserved his own movie. He deserves his own spinoff because the character himself, he’s just so iconic. He’s clever, he’s an adventurer, he’s a swashbuckler, he’s a protector and guardian of the lost world. It’s such a great, great character to have. We love to go on adventures with him because he’s just not afraid of anything.

For director John C. Donkin, it made sense to make a new film about the evergreen theme of family.

One of the great themes of this film is the family angle. And we loved the idea of once you’re in a herd, which is our family, it’s a herd. They’re equivalent. Once you’re in a herd and you have that connection, it’s okay if there’s some physical separation between you, because there’s always going to be shared love and support. 

The notion was enforced further by Forte, who said the coinciding pandemic helped bolster the film’s very timely themes.

I think we started with the story way before COVID obviously happened. So it’s just a universal message for all time. And because COVID happened, it seems strikingly apparent now, that the message about family and staying together, even if you’re not together, and being together, whether you’re not together. I think that all works, but I think it’s a universal theme for any time. 

Justina Machado is the latest addition to the Ice Age family, making her debut in this month’s The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild. Machado plays Zee, a zorilla whose past brings her into Buck Wild’s orbit. She’s a feisty fighter with a skill set unique to her character.

In the press junket for the film, Machado had nothing but nice things to say about being inducted into such an iconic franchise.

I remember seeing the original one with John Leguizamo and Ray Romano. I’ve always loved these movies. It was a little scary also to come into this family and be as exciting as the other characters. But after seeing the movie, I’m really proud of what we did and how it came out but it was fun and exciting and an honor to be a part of this franchise. It was a lot of fun. 

Producer Lori Forte explained the importance of Machado to the creative process, saying that the character was developed the more they got to work with Machado in the recording booth.

I think in this case with Zee, because she was a new character, when we started working with Justina, we were finding the character and and she was finding the character too. But the more sessions that went on, the more we got to know Justina, we started taking traits from her, like her strength and her personality and her in-your -face kind of thing. And it sort of wove into the character itself. And so Zee was very much part of who Justina is, I think.

Machado herself iterated on the challenges of voicing Zee as a character and how the development process helped her find her footing.

We developed it together. John, Lori and I developed a whole character together. It’s so hard to play somebody in control and badass. Those are my favorite characters to play and they gave me the liberty to do that. So it was just pure fun because the theme is love and family and chosen family and courage and all of those things.

Ice Age will go down as one of the beloved animation franchises from the noughts to make an imprint in pop culture. Lest we forget about Scrat, one of the funniest characters in animation, and the rest of the cast that grew to become icons in animation. So It comes as no surprise that 20 years after the first film came out, we’re still getting more of Ice Age content. The latest installment, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, comes out later this month on Disney+ worldwide.

The film sees Simon Pegg reprise his role as the renegade ruffian Buck Wild, who was last seen a few films ago. As the title indicates, Buck Wild takes center stage this time around, manning the crazy ship that is the Ice Age franchise in his own way. In the press junket, Pegg talked about the excitement he had for a new film that was introducing a new foil for Buck Wild.

For me, any time playing Buck is memorable just because it’s always such a full on experience. But it was lovely to see a new story coming to life and see this character in new environments. I loved it. Actually, I do remember when they first showed me the picture of Zee, because it was really exciting because it’s like another Buck. I know she’s a zorilla, but she’s totally his equal and a sort of counterpart to him in so many brilliant ways. And just getting excited about, “Oh he’s got a partner,” and it just felt like all the possibilities that have eventually now come to fruition felt very possible.

Pegg also talked about Buck’s big pathos for this film now that the character was the star of his own tall tale.

I think one of the things as well, for me personally, in terms of Buck as a character, which is a really sweet sort of sub theme in the film, is about… And it’s quite a male issue, I think, is the capacity to be able to ask for help. And Buck is such a loner. He’s so used to doing everything by himself, that the idea of relying on his friends, or trusting someone to do something else, is a little bit uncomfortable for him. And in this movie, he learns that it’s not only okay to ask for help, it’s also okay to ask for help as a guy from your female friends and to trust in them to take over. 

There’s also a sentimentality to Pegg reprising the role as the film franchise hits close to home for the actor. That Pegg can draw something so personal for his family from this film is telling of how this franchise has endured throughout the years.

I do love Buck. I have a very strong affection for him because he was born the same year my daughter was born. So the first time I played Buck was the year my kid was born and she’s grown up with those movies and with him. And weirdly as this new Ice Age installment comes out, my sister just gave birth this week. So there’s a new Ice Age baby to take the stories forward. So, it’s nothing but a joy to play Buck because it has all this kind of emotional resonance for me personally in my own family.