We rather enjoyed Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and unlike the faltering Shrek series there’s an actual sense of expectation for this new chapter.

20th Century Fox and Blue Sky have great confidence in the prehistoric animation, so much so that there’s news this morning that Ice Age 4 is on its way.

Subtitled Continental Drift, this film has a release date of Summer 2012 so it will sit nicely alongside the other projected releases for Batman 3 and the SpiderMan reboot.

Variety shouted this one out, and there are no other details at present, but if it can repeat the huge box office return of the third film then this won’t be the last time we see Scratte, Ellie, Diego and Sid.