I think you're seriously underestimating how easy it is to make a successful family movie.
Besides which, surely it's harder to make a successful movie based on a game with no specific plot or particular protagonist than it is a game such as "Dead Space" or "Mass Effect" where narrative and characterisation is already baked in?
This is why the original Metal Gear Solid needs a proper, by-the-writer's-version-of-the-book movie adaptation, or at least an HBO miniseries.
BECAUSE Spore has no story is why it makes sense. Because clearly they're just talking about usin the world and it's style. How am I the only one that gets this?
If what you say is true, and they just want the world and its art style, then why wouldn't you just copy the world and its art style and not bother with the expense of the Spore licence? Better still, you mention the Ice Age franchise, why wouldn't you just use the existing franchise as a template and craft a prequel called Primordial Age?
Primordial Age would have to be atleast somewhat based on actual evolution, where as spore gets to take the much more extremely bizarre approach to evolution... not to mention, if i had to guess i'd expect the first like 5-10 minutes or so of the film to show crazy evolution from premordial creatures into intelligent creatures, and then have the actual plot takes place in one of the last two portions of the game...
But ya, you probably could still do this all without the spore license

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