Given how much a part of pop culture the various holiday specials and movies have become, not to mention the massive fan base for the characters, it’s frankly more surprising that someone hasn’t tried more recently to get a film based on Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip characters on screens, as the last effort arrived in 1980. But now, with the 65th anniversary just a couple of years away, 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios have locked in a deal to do just that.
Steve Martino, Horton Hears A Who! / Ice Age: Continental Drift co-director, is overseeing the new adventure for Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest, which has been written by Craig Schulz, Bryan Schulz and Cornelius Uliano.
Deadline’s report makes no mention of plot details but you’d imagine it’ll hew closely to the Schulz tales, what with two years of negotiation with the Schulz estate to make it happen and two members of the family involved in the writing process.
“We have been working on this project for years. We finally felt the time was right and the technology is where we need it to be to create this film,” says Craig Schulz in a statement. “I am thrilled we will be partnering with Blue Sky/Fox to create a Peanuts movie that is true to the strip and will continue the legacy in honour of my father.”
The movie will arrive on screens – in the States, at least – on November 25, 2015, which, not so coincidentally, is the anniversary itself.