Carlos Saldanha (born July 20, 1968) is a Brazilian director of animated films who works with Blue Sky Studios. He was the director of Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), Rio (2011), and the co-director of Ice Age (2002) and Robots (2005). In Rio, his daughter, Sofia Scarpa Saldanha, voices Linda Gunderson as a child.
During its fledgling years, Blue Sky Studios provided special effects and produced animated TV commercials. In 2002, Saldanha and Wedge co-directed the animated feature film Ice Age. The movie was a success, with an opening weekend gross of $46.3 million, the best March opening ever. After co-directing the 2005 film Robots, he broke his previous March opening record with the 2006 Ice Age sequel, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, which Saldanha directed by himself. He would later direct the 2009 sequel, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Desiring a change of location after directing three films set in icy locales, Saldanha's next project was the 2011 film Rio, which is set in Saldanha's hometown of Rio de Janeiro. Saldanha, who felt that Rio had never been fully portrayed on film, felt a responsibility to travel to the city with the other animators, so that they could accurately capture Rio's unique environment and habitats. The movie grossed a reported $484 million worldwide.
In October 2012, Saldanha signed a five-year exclusive deal with 20th Century Fox to develop and produce animated and live-action projects. For 2014, he is directing Rio 2, and is set to direct for 2017 an animated feature adaptation of The Story of Ferdinand. He is also developing an animated feature film based on Alienology from the Ologies fantasy book series.
