'Peanuts' to be reborn via Blue Sky; Chris Carter stears 'The After'

20^th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios –the company behind the Ice Age films and Dr. Suess’ Horton Hears a Who and Rio- are partnering again for a big screen adaptation of Charles Schulz’s beloved Peanuts characters. They’ve set a November 25, 2015 release date for a film, which will be the classic cartoon strips 65^th anniversary and the 50^th anniversary of the classic CBS special A Charlie Brown Christmas. Steve Martino, who co-directed Horton Hears a Who and this summer’s Ice Age: Continental Drift, will helm this film, based on a screenplay by grandsons Craig Schulz and Bryan Schulz along with Cornelius Uliano.

 

The X Files creator Chris Carter has kept a somewhat low profile since his series ended in 2002. Sure, he co-wrote and directed the second big screen adventure of Mulder and Scully, 2008’s disappointing The X Files: I Want to Believe, and about a year ago he was working on a procedural show with supernatural overtones call Unique, but overall, the man has kept a low-profile for 10 years. But now, the writer has teamed up with Georgetown Television to bring the world The After. It sounds like a conspiracy series -a thriller which revolves around a mysterious and unexplained event and will incorporate “elements of science-fiction, suspense and real-word fear and paranoia.” Georgetown Television, by the way, seems to making an impression of late, as they’re also behind the recently announced reboot of the classic British sci fi series Blakes 7, as well as a pandemic thriller called Hunters from Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and a supernatural series called Sense from team Wachowski.  The only downside to this announcement is that no US based network has picked up the show, and it’s the intention of Georgetown to shop the show at Cannes, potentially acquiring foreign financing and thus hoping to have it go for a full series pick-up versus going through the usual pilot process. Like a lot of old, popular US shows (especially science fiction and fantasy) the market is huge overseas, so there is a potential it could get picked-up. But that begs the question; would it air here anytime soon?