Let’s rewind. The Croods (2013) was a surprise hit—$587 million worldwide, a heartfelt caveman-family road trip, and a rare DreamWorks success after a few misfires. A sequel was announced immediately. Then… nothing. For seven years . By 2016, The Croods 2 was officially dead. DreamWorks had been acquired by Universal, and the new regime pulled the plug. Animators moved on. Scripts were buried. Fans mourned a movie that would never be.
Except—in 2017, a miracle happened. (voice of Grug) revealed in an interview that the sequel was “back on.” How? A combination of Netflix sniffing around for original animated content and Universal realizing the first film was a streaming goldmine. The movie was resurrected like a prehistoric phoenix, given a fraction of the normal production time, and somehow… released in November 2020. What Makes the IMDb Score Interesting A 7.0 isn’t groundbreaking, but context matters. The Croods 2 landed during peak COVID, in theaters and on PVOD, a risky hybrid release. Critics were lukewarm (75% on Rotten Tomatoes), but audiences loved it. The IMDb user reviews tell a clear story: “Better than the first” appears constantly.
The Croods 2 shouldn’t work. That it does—and with such weird, wild heart—is its own kind of prehistoric miracle.