The Peanuts Movie’s animation studio closes

Animated Peanuts

Blue Sky Studios, the animation house behind the lush and enthusiastic The Peanuts Movie has been shut down . The studio had been part of Fox, and moved to Disney as part of the their big Fox buyout a couple years back. Blue Sky is best known for the Ica Age and Rio films.

This is not a shock, given the tough moment for the entertainment business, and that Disney already has multiple animation divisions. I do hope that many of the employees get snatched up by other animation houses — luckily, we are no longer in the days when Disney was 95% of the feature animation business.

(But at least this may put a stop to the “will they put out a sequel to The Peanuts Movie” question. They were never going to put out a sequel; while the film was very well reviewed, it was one of their lower grossing movies.)

 

Animated Peanuts
Free Snoopy Weekend

Apple just announced that this weekend, you can watch all of their original programming for free (you will have to sign in for an account, but not a subscription.) This means The Snoopy Show, Snoopy in Space, Camp Snoopy, and the new Peanuts specials that were created for Apple should all be …

Animated Peanuts
RIP Willie Mays

Willie Mays has died. The baseball great lived until the age of 1993. “Why is that relevant to a Peanuts blog?” I hear of a few of you cry (though many of you know better.) Before Lee Mendelson had any connection to Peanuts, he made a documentary about Mays… and …

Animated Peanuts
New Peanuts feature film on the way

Apple, who have been producing Peanuts series and specials in plentitude, have announced that they, Wildbrain, and Peanuts Worldwide are working together on a new Peanuts feature-length film, the Hollywood Reporter notes. If you liked the last feature film, then this should be very good news. They’re using a story …