You’re a good Canadian, Charlie Brown
In 2012, as the big-budget feature film The Peanuts Movie was announced, Jeannie Schulz was enthusiastic yet not without concern. What if this was too ambitious? What if the public did not embrace the latest digital iteration of the Charlie Brown gang — a story not created by her late cartoonist husband?
The film’s ultimate success three years later assuaged such concerns. Fox/Blue Sky’s CG-animated film grossed nearly a quarter-billion dollars worldwide, and garnered a Golden Globe nomination.
What the film especially reflected was the enduring fan affection for Peanuts, which makes the US$345 million deal with Halifax-based kids’ programming company DHX Media, announced last week, not at all surprising.
A decade after Charles Schulz’s death, United Media Licensing was sold to the Iconix Brand Group in a $175 million deal, with an 80 per cent stake in Peanuts going to Iconix and the Schulz family getting the other 20 per cent.
Looking toward Canada seems a savvy way for the Peanuts family to retain that same 20 per cent control while continuing to lean into consumer potential. Meanwhile, DHX gains an 80 per cent stake in Peanuts and a 100 per cent stake in Strawberry Shortcake, which was owned by Iconix.
“Over the course of the last several months, we have met with DHX Media and all of their working parts,” Schulz says, “and we have confidence that they are a partner who understands the heart and soul of Peanuts. We look forward to working them.”
The Schulz family members are retaining their same stake; they have proved to be a sure and steady hand, with a son and grandson o co-writing the Peanuts Movie’s screenplay. And what Peanuts fans get in DHX is a Nova Scotia-based company that has displayed a particular acumen with growing and licensing children’s content.