Here’s an interesting take on The Croods: A New Age (often searched as “IMDb Croods 2”)—focusing on its unlikely journey from development hell to a surprisingly sharp sequel. If you type “IMDb Croods 2” into a search bar today, you’ll see a tidy score: 7.0/10 . A solid “pretty good.” But that number hides one of the most chaotic, improbable, and oddly fascinating production stories in modern animation.

Why? Because the sequel took a weird, self-aware swing. The plot—the Croods meeting the superior, farm-owning Bettermans—is essentially a . There’s a “thunder sister” side plot, a punch-puppy named Chunky, and a sequence where characters literally get high on “nightmares.” It’s unhinged in a way the first film wasn’t. The Secret Weapon: The “Bettermans” Dynamic Where The Croods was about family vs. nature, A New Age is about toxic self-improvement . Phil Betterman (voiced by Peter Dinklage) is a smug, gluten-free, wall-having prehistoric yuppie. He represents everything Grug fears: change, inadequacy, and the idea that being a “good father” means building a fortress, not jumping off cliffs together.

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.