Dog Day Cartoon
Charlie Brown and his pals are coming to the big screen in The Peanuts Movie
forget the avengers, charles Schultz was creating a shared universe of characters when Tony Stark was still just a twinkle in Stan Lee’s specs. The strip debuted in 1950 (13 years before Avengers), and each character – from Linus to Lucy, Peppermint Patty to Pig-Pen – has their own army of admirers. Did the filmmakers at Blue Sky Studios (the outfit behind Ice Age) feel like they were working on an Avengers-style movie, trying to balance all those iconic characters?
“Yes, no doubt. It was probably the greatest motivator for myself, and a lot of us working on this movie, knowing that these characters have been important to people around the world in so many different ways,” director Steve Martino says.
“We’re fans first and foremost, so are our friends, and everybody’s got their favourite character. I’ve got a good friend who just loves Schroeder. He says, ‘There’s got to be more Schroeder! More piano playing!’ But we’re servicing the thematic story, and its heart is Snoopy and Charlie Brown.”
Senior animator Nick Bruno agrees. “It’s funny, I’d never thought about those poor guys who had to do all of those Marvel characters, thinking of all the pain and anguish we went through trying to make sure we got everyone right,” he says.
“You can so easily say good and bad things about those movies, but they went through it too! As fans, you can’t help but say, ‘I’ve got to see Charlie Brown try to kick that football.’ But our compass was always that we had a story to tell. If those elements help the story along, then great. The story was the most important thing.”
The Peanuts Movie opens on 21 December.