Good Grief! ‘Peanuts’ Back On The Big Screen In CGI And 3D, First Trailer Released

Peanuts, the beloved comic strip by Charles M. Schulz that started in 1950 running in seven newspapers, but was read by 355 million people worldwide by the time it ended in 2000, is coming back to the big screen for the first time since 1980 next year, and the first trailer hit the internet Monday.

The new movie is produced by Paul Feig, best known for such raunchy, gross-out comedy fare as Bridesmaids and The Heat.

But Peanuts fans shouldn’t worry. The 51-year-old Feig says that when he was kid Peanuts was “my Star Wars,” and Feig has made sure that the legacy of Peanuts remains intact. The new Peanuts movie, which does not hit screens until November 6 of 2015, is co-produced by Craig Schulz, son of the legendary Peanuts creator.

As if that wasn’t protection enough for the iconic Peanuts characters — Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the whole Peanuts gang — the screenplay is penned by Craig Schulz’s son Bryan Schulz and his writing partner Cornelius Uliano.

“I’m way more protective than my father would have been,” Craig Schulz told USA Today. “Our Number One goal was always to be authentic to his work and legacy. With my father’s work this is three generations of Shulzes on this film.”

Of course, the upcoming film does make some concessions to 21st Century Hollywood. Unlike the previous Peanuts movies and TV specials, which were animated by hand the old-fashioned way, the new Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios version of Peanuts is all CGI, that is, computer-animated — and will be released in 3D.

But Craig Schulz believes his father, who died at 78 of colon cancer in February of 2000 just one day before the final Peanuts comic strip was published, would be delighted by the new technology.

“It would have been absolutely logical for him to have come onboard,” said Craig Schulz. “And it brings you closer into the comic strip.”

The new film also adopts the straightforward title, Peanuts. Previous film and TV versions of the strip used the name of the main character, Charlie Brown, which in itself has become an American institution.

The first feature-length treatment of the Peanuts gang was the 1969 animated film, A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Until Peanuts hits screens, the last film based on the strip remains 1980’s Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!).

As heard in the new trailer, Peanuts even employs the original theme music by jazz composer Vince Guaraldi. First heard in the 1965 animated TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas, the tune is actually titled “Linus and Lucy,” but has come to be known simply as “The Peanuts Theme.”