Charlie Brown recounts a particularly harrowing encounter at football camp
After Heathcliff, Family Circus, and even Bazooka Joe were optioned for movies, a bad idea for a 3D Peanuts adaptation seems anti-climactic by comparison. But that’s what we’re getting, from Fox and the guys who did Ice Age. They’ve already made four Peanuts movies, the last in 1980, the only thing different about the new one is that it would be CGI.
Andy Serkis as Snoopy or GTFO.
20th Century Fox Animation and Ice Age makers Blue Sky Studios will turn Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock and the whole Peanuts gang into an animated feature film franchise. Fox has closed a deal for rights to turn the strip by the late Charles Schulz into a film that has already been set for release on November 25, 2015.
Fox Animation has set director Steve Martino, who co-directed the Fox/Blue Sky hit Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears A Who! and Fox Animation’s latest blockbuster, Ice Age: Continental Drift.[Deadline]
As Badass Digest points out, the last Peanuts movie came out in 1980, and had the gang travel to Europe, where it broke all the rules by showing adults and having them speak in real words. I’ve heard rumor that Peanuts was once clever, socially relevant, and subversive, but since I’m younger than 70, it’s always been unfunny New Yorker cartoons for kids to me. Last I saw the gang, it was in a commercial for life insurance. And nothing says culturally-relevant content for kids like selling life insurance, right?? Anyway, I guess it did have two characters that were basically an openly lesbian couple, so maybe it was like Modern Family before its time.
In the 2015 Peanuts, when teachers and adults open their mouths to talk? Nothing but dub-step.
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My gut reaction is that I hate everything about this.
I’m not a huge Peanuts fan or anything, but I don’t see anything wrong with a new movie… until they dragged 3D and CGI into it. Then it just sounds dumb.
I mean, why can’t they do like that recent Winnie the Pooh and use traditional animation? That movie was effing adorable.
… What? My brother has three small children.
Exactly. That Winnie the Pooh was the perfect example of traditional animation still being relevant and awesome. Not to mention beautifully drawn.
3D CGI Peanuts has Dismissive Wank Sprain written all over it.
Woodstock will be rebooted as Coachella. Mad edgy yo.
Or Woodstock ’99. “He got 99 problems but a finch aint one.”
If they want to make this culturally relevant for kids, they’ll update Snoopy’s WWI pilot fantasies to at least Korea.
Schroeder has a toy synth and emulates daft punk.
I’m not liking the way this sounds either. While Peanuts became quickly outdated in the 70′s the early stuff is pretty good (see the re-issued comics from Fantagraphics). And the Vince Guaraldi jazz from the tv specials was always kind of neat until it go overplayed every holiday season.
I think the only way this could really work is if there was someone like Jason Segel to champion it like he did with the muppets. Or get Robert Smigel to direct and make it messed up to the point of absurdity.
What is the over/under for number of headlines on this story including the phrase “Good Grief”?
*sigh*
Good Grief!
“…it’s always been unfunny New Yorker cartoons for kids to me…” This place is becoming a modern day version of an ancient Greek philosophy school for me. I’ve disliked Peanuts for a long time, but this really explains my feelings so much better.
Lucy: You shouldn’t confuse Charles Schulz being dead with the tacit approval of crap, Charlei Brown.
Lucy: You shouldn’t confuse Charles Schulz being dead with the tacit approval of crap, Charlie Brown.
Heresy in the second degree (the first degree was teachers speaking words instead of wh-whon-whon-whon).
Is there nothing from my past that the morons of today will not rip up and convert into trite reality-show trash?
I can hardly wait to see Serkis doing the Snoopy Dance in the DVD extras.
at least that didn’t read “the director of dr suess’ the lorax.”
I want to see this done live-action with people wearing grotesque plushie costumes, a la The Oogieloves in the BIG Balloon Adventure. That film is the benchmark against which all future cinema shall be judged (and found wanting).
Charlie Brown recounts a particularly harrowing encounter at football camp
#Sanduskied
Do you know what it sounds like when Marcie is eating out Peppermint Pattyin high def 3D?
“York, york, slurp york, york…”
Wa’qa wa’qa wa’qa! Play Him off, Ker’Splatt!
Truth be told, if they could make it look dusty in the WHOLE theater when Pigpen was around, I would buy a $15 ticket.
GUHHHHHH. Charles Schultz would put a #2 pencil through the eye of whomever suggested this.
Seriously, some things should be left alone. For instance, The Muppets. Whole thing felt hollow. It wasn’t even the changed voices. The movie as a whole was too sappy and hardly touched on what made the Muppets great.
(Also, whoever was working Fozzie did an awful job. I don’t know what it was that screamed “THIS IS A PUPPET” in a way that had never stood out to me before, but Fozzie’s puppetry seemed really amateur night.)
Kids will be excited to watch a depressing movie about a boring dork who can’t understand why no one likes him.
I wish they would combine Peanuts and Honey Boo Boo into one movie called It’s the Great Bumpkin, Charlie Brown.
NC-17 version: It’s the Great Blumpkin, Charlie Brown.
And here I thought Louis C.K. was the updated 3D Charlie Brown. Live and learn.
You guys are all hopelessly cynical, but here’s my mini-screed:
The palette of children’s entertainment should be broad, with room for Bratz and Alvin & Da Chizmonks: KidzBop on one end and wholesome, earnest entertainment like Peanuts on the other. The fact that guys in their late 20s who were robbed of fully developed childhoods don’t see any value in Peanuts (or frankly any quality children’s entertainment) does not mean that Peanuts is not worthy of respect and protection.
I dread what will happen to this property in the wrong hands. It would NOT be cool if they rip the soul out of this just to try to deliver some jaded, trashy film that they think comports to what America’s lost youth of today want. Charlie BRown disrespecting his parents and wearing a sideways baseball hat would be straight BULLSHIT.
/end screed
You have to realize, that for most people my age, we were never exposed to the Peanuts that was witty and smart, we were exposed to the Peanuts that was being used to sell all manner of product – skin-deep character types, like in that MetLife commercial. You’re worried about Peanuts’ soul? They sold its soul 20 years ago.
The Chuck Schultz estate gotta eat, I guess.
That was probably an unfair dig by me, by the way. Love your site and I take your advice on movies very seriously, but the one hole I see is your reviews on children’s movies. You’ve admitted your thoughts there are driven by the circumstances of your own upbringing.
But I turn 40 in a few months and have three sons, so I’m in a different place and have a different perspective. I think our culture disrespects childhood, and doesn’t seek to protect it and nurture it, but instead tries to make 8-year-olds into adults, when they aren’t emotionally prepared for it. It’s not a good thing for our society.
Yes, because what a quaint comic strip about existential angst needs is 3D. I find it hugely ironic that generation that adores Wes Andersen films and “Arrested Development” can’t find humor in “Peanuts”.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, daily newspaper comic strips were not aimed exclusively (or even primarily) at children. Some of the “Peanuts” TV specials managed to successfully appeal both to children and adults, mixing in some of the “existential angst” with mild humour. I do not hold out much hope for such a mix in this proposed feature film.
That said, I was rather surprised that Ice Age 4 contained elements that I considered more “adult” in nature (in broadest sense, such as some truly nice “awesome” animated scenes) and wasn’t 100% child-friendly. That still doesn’t mean I think it would do justice to the “Peanuts” style. I fear it will be “updated” a la (to quote Lester Mayes Hayes) “Alvin & Da Chizmonks.”
In the 3D version, Charlie Brown’s depression will linger over the audience like it’s actually above us!