Meet Charlie in 3D in ‘Peanuts’ movie

Carrying on the legacy of the comic strip, filmmaker, Steve Martino and producer-writer, Craig M. Schulz — the son of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz, discuss the intricacies of animation, finding the right voice for the Peanuts characters and what’s next in store for Peanuts, in an interview with tabloid! at the Dubai International Film Festival, where the film had a red carpet children’s gala screening on Friday. The film goes on general release in the UAE on December 24.

Animation is often perceived as effortless. Do you think that animation isn’t being taken seriously enough and does this bother you?

Martino: It doesn’t personally bother me but I would say that there’s one question — rather, the tone of asking the question — that sometimes gets under my skin. People say “So, what does the director of an animation film do?”, as though we don’t do anything when compared to a director of a live action film. In reality, I feel like we have to do more.

How did you know that you found the right voice for Peanuts?

Martino: Peanuts was unique in the fact that when I was growing up, there was one Charlie Brown and that was the Charlie Brown that was in the Christmas special and the Halloween special. There were many TV specials and years later those kids grew up and new kids did the voices but they weren’t quite right for me and I felt that the voices had to sound like the original characters or the audience might get bummed out of the film. Of course we were going to cast kids or else it would be odd. I couldn’t be happier than the cast we got. I have worked with great actors like Jim Carrey and Steve Carell but there was something really charming about the kids I worked with.

With Peanuts, you’re catering to two generations. Would you say that Peanuts is an attempt to bridge the generation gap?

Martino: It is. Kids today don’t read the comic strip in the newspaper like I did when I was growing up. Instead, they meet their characters on the big screen. We wanted to create an experience that would introduce these wonderful characters, explain who they are, and tell an engaging story. Why 3D? Craig M. Schulz: We knew that we wanted something very special, very unique and very identifiable. Kids these days are so used to 3D. If we would have put something old school — like a 2D animation from the 1960s, I don’t think it would have worked. I go back to what my dad had said: “If you’re a cartoonist, for instance, and you think, ‘I want to draw a horse’, you don’t picture a black and white outline of a horse. You picture a real horse. We have finally got to the point wherein we can see what he was thinking. What’s next for Peanuts? Schulz: Well, we’ve done everything. In my dad’s lifetime, he did 50 specials, four movies, a Broadway play and a live action animation special. My hope is that we do another Broadway stage play. I’d like to get something like that done.