Snoopy grabs headlines in buzz over new 'Peanuts' movie (video)

Good grief.

Snoopy is taking the heat for the early release of a two-minute clip of the first-ever full-length feature film starring the world’s most beloved dog and all the Charlie Brown gang, a creative project that has consumed a son and grandson of late cartoonist Charles Schulz for eight years.

The trailer for the “Peanuts” movie wasn’t set to debut until Thanksgiving Day, but it has appeared online early. Whatever the actual reason for the premature release, the Schulzes and filmmakers with 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios are cleverly blaming a mute beagle.

Avid fans of Snoopy and the vintage “Peanuts” TV specials created by Charles Schulz, pianist Vince Guaraldi and producer Lee Mendelson may find the clip agonizing.

This film, featuring 3-D-like computer-generated graphics, won’t open until Nov. 6 of next year.

“Believe it or not, we have over 400 animators working on it right now,” Craig Schulz, 61, said from his Santa Rosa home.

He conceived the storyline in 2006 listening to Sonoma County radio station KZST while veteran deejay Brent Farris was playing songs for contributors to the Secret Santa gift program.

Recalled Schulz, “I had a vision for what would make a cool TV special.” He shared his vision for a short feature starring Charlie Brown et al. to his son, Bryan, a screenwriter.

“He told me, ‘Dad, it would be better as a full-length movie.’”

The two Schulzes and Bryan’s screenwriting partner, Cornelius Uliano, spent several years working on a script. They pitched it to Fox.

The studio signed on. The project attracted director Steve Martino of the Blue Sky computer animation studios. Martino is best known for his work on “Horton Hears a Who!” and “Ice Age: Continental Drift.”

The process of making a major film with major studios has proved quite a ride for Craig Schulz, who’s also the president of Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates of Santa Rosa, operator of Snoopy’s Home Ice, the landmark skate arena near Coddingtown Mall.

“I had no idea it was going to be so labor intensive,” he said. He told of discovering that the beauty of computer animation is that it can readily be altered and improved as the feature is being made.

“We’re constantly changing it,” he said.

All through the process of the writing, creating and refining of the “Peanuts” movie, Schulz has demanded the film be true to the characters and the core character of his late father’s universally renowned comic strip.

“This has been my objective since day one, to make something he would be proud of,” he said.

His dad, a native of Minnesota, had drawn “Peanuts” in Santa Rosa for more than 40 years until he died of cancer in February 2000 at age 77.

The 2015 release of the new film coincides, not at all coincidentally, with the 65th anniversary of the launch of his strip in November 1950.

Son Craig said he is blown away by the visual effects of the computer-graphic illustration, which gives the characters of the “Peanuts” movie a rounded, almost 3-D appearance.

It was cool enough when Snoopy flew as the World War I Flying Ace in the old “Peanuts” TV specials, Schulz said.

“But it’s another thing when Blue Sky makes him fly. It’s pretty special.”

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @cjspd.