Blue Sky Studio's The Peanuts Movie 10th Anniversary

    

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In the year 2000, Charles “Sparky” Schulz, the acclaimed comic strip artist and creator of the popular Peanuts characters, sadly passed away from colon cancer at age 77. But as any other excellent work of art, his characters would continue to live on in new television specials and reprints of the classic comic strip and reruns of the classic specials. Six years later, Sparks’s son, Craig Schulz, started to develop the idea of an all new animated feature film adaptation of his father’s work. While the Peanuts characters had starred in four features before, which included Snoopy Come Home (1972), this particular feature project was developed to be a big screen tribute to Sparky. Eventually, Craig brought on board his son, Bryan, to help fine tune the story for it to be a proper film narrative. 

    Soon, it was time to pitch this idea to a studio in the hopes it would be green lighted. However, it wasn’t an easy process because the one crucial condition was that it had to be under the full creative control of the Schulz family. In retrospect, this was a smart move because they wouldn’t want the project to suffer studio interference and end up as, for example, Space Jam (1996) which is considered disrespectful to the class characters featured in the film. In 2012, it was officially announced that the film would be produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios. The reason why Blue Sky Studios was chosen was because Craig and Bryan enjoyed the family atmosphere of the studio. To direct the film, the Schulz picked Horton Hears a Who (2008) director, Steve Martino, because he proved that he can understand the source material as he did with the studio’s Dr. Seuss feature adaptation. 

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    At the time production started, the studio was in the midst of producing their 2013 film Epic. Craig and Bryan were impressed with the work that was done in the film and there was a group that thought about applying what was done in that film to the Peanuts characters. But, another group thought that it should be a proper tribute to the original TV specials and adopt what done for those instead. And the second group won. 

    What should be remembered is that the classic Peanuts specials from the 1960s to the late 80s used what is called limited animation due to being produced on a shoestring budget. But the animation quality is still fondly remembered for its charm and simplicity. The challenge was to bring that into the often realistic looking computer animation. To do this, the crew had to throw out everything that they learned about computer animation. This included animating the characters on 2s instead of 1s and not using snap turns instead of smooth turns that reveal a 3 quarter angle. It was also a matter of rendering the film to look hand drawn. 

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    As for the casting, similar to the past specials and films, the film would cast real children in the roles of the Peanuts characters. This would include kids that either acted in commercials or television. The movie would also include archival recordings of the late Bill Melendez for the vocal effects of Snoopy and Woodstock. The one celebrity that was in the movie was Broadway and film actress Kristen Chenoweth as Fifi. 

   When the teaser trailer was first released in front of Blue Sky’s Rio 2 (2014), audiences already had the feeling that it would be a special movie. When The Peanuts Movie was finally released on November 6, 2015, it was very well received. It’s score of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes made it the highest rated film by Blue Sky on the website. Critics praised it as a fun family film and a proper respectful tribute to the classic characters and creator. The Peanuts Movie was also a box office success and earned the studio’s first Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Animated Feature Film. 

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    The Peanuts Movie was also the last successful movie for Blue Sky Studios. Unfortunately, the follow up film, Ice Age: Collision Course (2016), received poor reviews and bombed at the domestic box office. While Ferdinand (2017) and Spies in Disguise (2019) were well received, they weren’t really successful at the box office. Sadly, after Disney-Fox merger in 2019, Blue Sky Studios closed down. But Apple TV recently announced a new Peanuts feature is in the works with Steve Martino returning to direct. So we’ll possibly see Charlie Brown and company on the silver screen soon.

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