‘Peanuts’: No iPhones, iPads or bathroom jokes
Project hits the screen on creator Schulz’s terms
Producer Craig Schulz recalls laying down truth about Peanuts tradition, with vigor, before work started on The Peanuts
Movie.
If Blue Sky Studios animators were to make a movie based on his father Charles M. Schulz’s beloved comic strip, they were going to do it the Schulz way — timeless and classic.
“I remember sitting in the room on Day 1 saying: ‘We’re not putting in iPhones or iPads. And if there’s one fart joke, we’re shutting this project down,’ ” Schulz says. “Everyone knew the standard from the get-go.”
The Peanuts Movie (in theaters Friday) marks the first time that Charlie Brown, Snoopy and gang have been in theaters since 1980’s Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown.
After Charles Schulz died in 2000, putting an end to the strip he had drawn for 50 years, the family was intent on protecting the brand. “It was not worth the risk to do a movie if it wasn’t going to turn out good,” Schulz says. “That’s why we waited so long.”
The stars aligned after Craig Schulz wrote a tradition-honoring screenplay with his son, Bryan, and teamed with simpatico director Steve Martino, who had adapted Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! for the big screen in 2008.
“It was not the time to be reinventing (these characters),” Martino says. “I wanted to deliver a film that stands with love.”
There was an outcry when filmmakers announced the project would be 3-D and computer-animated. “Some fans went to the dark side initially about that,” Schulz says. “But we’re painting on a much larger canvas onscreen — we had to up the ante.”
Most decisions sided with Peanuts custom, such as nixing hair for the famously bald Charlie Brown. “You put hair fibers on the character and you realize it looks terrible,” Schulz says.
The filmmakers also fought pressure to bring in marketable celebrities to play the children. They tried out more than 1,000 hopefuls to find the right voice actors in the spirit of the TV specials.
Martino says The Peanuts Movie moves at “a faster clip” than past projects “because today’s audiences, particularly kids, gobble information fast.”
But the story remains close to source material. Charlie Brown woos the Little Red-Haired Girl, Snoopy takes his doghouse on imaginary World War I plane flights — only now he spins through 3-D skies.
The movie will be a big hit, even competing against James Bond in Spectre this weekend, says Jeff Bock, box office analyst for Exhibitor Relations.
“The Peanuts gang finally have the right movie, and this will be huge, a minimum of $45 million,” says Bock, who sees it as the beginning of an enviable franchise. “And this weekend is just the beginning. This movie will play all through the holiday season.” Schulz is pleased with the result. “People tell me that my dad would be so proud,” he says. “It’s keeping what he did alive.”