Hadley Belle Miller

The Peanuts Movie was released on digital platforms on February 12, 2016 before being released on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and 4K Ultra HD a month later on March 8, 2016. The film debuted at the top of the home media sales chart for the week ending on March 13, 2016.

The Peanuts Movie (known in some countries as Snoopy and Charlie Brown: A Peanuts Movie) is a 2015 American computer-animated comedy film based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts, produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the fifth full-length Peanuts film, and the first in 35 years. The film is directed by Steve Martino from a screenplay by Craig and Bryan Schulz (Schulz's son and grandson, respectively), and Cornelius Uliano, and stars the voices of Noah Schnapp as Charlie Brown and, via archival recordings, Bill Melendez as Snoopy and Woodstock. The film sees Charlie Brown trying to improve his odds with the Little Red-Haired Girl, while Snoopy writes a book about the World War I Flying Ace as he imagines himself as a legend trying to save his love interest and fellow pilot Fifi from the Red Baron and his army.

The Peanuts Movie premiered in New York City on November 1, 2015, and was released in the United States five days later. It grossed $246 million worldwide against a $99 million budget to become the 7th highest-grossing animated film of 2015. The film was met with generally favorable reviews, with praise for the animation and faithfulness towards the source material. It received nominations for the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature, the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Animated Feature, and was the first Blue Sky Studios film to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

On July 28, 2015, it was announced that Meghan Trainor would write and perform a song for the film, entitled "Better When I'm Dancin'". Epic Records released the soundtrack album on October 23, 2015. The 20-track album features Trainor's "Better When I'm Dancin", Flo Rida's "That's What I Like" featuring Fitz, "Linus and Lucy", "Skating" and "Christmas Time Is Here" by Vince Guaraldi, from the A Charlie Brown Christmas album, and 15 tracks of Beck's original score for the film. An exclusive edition of the soundtrack released at Target features a second Trainor track, "Good to Be Alive". The Japanese edition of the soundtrack includes "Good to Be Alive" and three more tracks from Beck's score. The Japan version of the movie also uses Japanese singer-songwriter Ayaka's "A Song For You" for the trailer and the ending instead of Trainor's, but it was released as a single and did not appeared on the Japanese edition of soundtrack album.

The Peanuts Movie held its premiere in New York City on November 1, 2015, and was released on November 6, 2015 in the United States on 3,897 screens. The release commemorates the 65th anniversary of the comic strip and the 50th anniversary of the TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas. The film was originally scheduled for November 25, 2015, and in November 2012 was rescheduled to November 6, 2015. The film was released as Snoopy and Charlie Brown: A Peanuts Movie in the United Kingdom and Australia in late December 2015. The Australian release date was postponed to January 1, 2016.

In the United States and Canada, the film grossed $12.1 million on its opening day, earning a total of $44 million for the weekend (with 27% of the gross coming from 3D screenings), finishing second at the box office behind Spectre ($70.4 million). Outside North America, the film opened in the same week as the US and grossed $4.56 million from 12 markets. China ($2.76 million) and Italy ($1.16 million) delivered the biggest openings. After three weekends, it opened to a total of 49 markets where it had the second biggest opening of 2015 in Mexico ($3.1 million) and debuted in the U.K., Ireland and Malta at No. 2 with $5.5 million (including previews) behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens. One of the final markets was Australia where the film opened on New Year's Day 2016, earning $2.6 million in its first week.

A video game based on the film, titled Snoopy's Grand Adventure, was released on November 3, 2015 for Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, and published by Activision.

On the film's plot, Martino said: "Here's where I lean thematically. I want to go through this journey... Charlie Brown is that guy who, in the face of repeated failure, picks himself back up and tries again. That's no small task. I have kids who aspire to be something big and great... a star football player or on Broadway. I think what Charlie Brown is—what I hope to show in this film—is the everyday qualities of perseverance... to pick yourself back up with a positive attitude—that's every bit as heroic... as having a star on the Walk of Fame or being a star on Broadway. That's the [story's] core. This is a feature film story that has a strong dramatic drive, and takes its core ideas from the strip." Martino and his animators spent over a year looking at Charles M. Schulz's original drawing style to help translate the "hand-drawn warmth... into the cool pixel-precision of CGI" without the fear of something getting lost in translation, such as "how the dot of an eye [conveyed] joy or sorrow so efficiently". In addition to receiving the rights to use Bill Melendez's voice for Snoopy and Woodstock, Martino was also able to get the rights to archive music from previous Peanuts specials. Classic locations are featured, such as Charlie Brown's skating pond, his house, "the wall" and Lucy's psychiatrist booth, each retaining their "eternal look of the strip." Additionally, despite being outdated technology, rotary phones and typewriters are seen, as well as Lucy's psychiatrist booth still costing a nickel. Adult characters "wah-wah" voices are represented by a trombone with a plunger mute, as in previous Peanuts media, courtesy of New Orleans jazz musician Trombone Shorty. Because of the robust number of existing Peanuts characters, the film does not introduce any new characters.

In October 2014, it was announced that Christophe Beck would score the film. Beck stated, "With the Peanuts movies, I grew up on those specials from the '60s and '70s, that, of course, rerun to this day. I'm very fond of all that Vince Guaraldi music, so what we did was try to find spots in the film where we could sort of touch down and remind people who were watching the film that it's still a Peanuts movie, and there's still a place for that music in the film. There's a bunch of spots where we quote the Guaraldi music, or we actually re-record his pieces quite faithfully." He also added that the score would be more orchestral than Guaraldi's previous scores, which were mainly a small jazz combo. Jazz pianist David Benoit contributed to Beck's score.

On January 8, 2013, Leigh Anne Brodsky became the managing director of Peanuts Worldwide, and was set to control all the global deals for the film. In April 2013, Fox announced that the film would be released in 3D. In October 2013, it was announced that Paul Feig would also produce. By April 2015, 75% of the animation was complete, with some footage scheduled to debut at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported an 87% approval rating and an average rating of 7.06/10 based on 193 reviews, making it the highest-rated film to date produced by Blue Sky Studios. The site's consensus states: "The Peanuts Movie offers a colorful gateway into the world of its classic characters and a sweetly nostalgic – if relatively unambitious – treat for the adults who grew up with them". On Metacritic, the film has received a weighted average score of 67 out of 100 based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

In 2006, six years after the release of the last original Peanuts strip, as well as the death of creator Charles M. Schulz, his son Craig Schulz came up with an idea for a new Peanuts film, which he showed to his screenwriter son Bryan Schulz. "I was happy to show my son," Craig said. "He showed me how to make it bigger—how to blow it up more—and he helped me put in structure." When presenting their film to studios, Craig stipulated that the film remain under Schulz control, saying, "We need[ed] to have absolute quality control and keep it under Dad's legacy... You can't bring people in from the outside and expect them to understand Peanuts." On October 9, 2012, it was announced that 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios were developing a 3D computer-animated feature film based on the strip, with Steve Martino directing from the screenplay by Craig Schulz, Bryan Schulz, and Cornelius Uliano. Craig, Bryan, and Uliano also produced. Craig, stating there is no one "more protective of the comic strip than myself," chose Martino as director because he showed faithfulness to literature in his adaptation of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!.

Development of the film began in 2006, six years after the death of Charles Schulz and the final release of the last Peanuts comic strip. Craig Schulz, the son of Charles, pitched a film idea to his son, Bryan Schulz. While presenting the film idea, Bryan stated that he had full creative control on the film, so that the quality would remain under Charles' legacy. 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios announced development of a computer-animated film in October 2012, with Steve Martino directing, due to his faithfulness in the film, Horton Hears a Who!, also produced by Blue Sky. Numerous elements from the comic strip were featured in the film, such as Charlie Brown's skating pond, his house, "the wall" and Lucy's psychiatrist booth, as well as the Snoopy and Woodstock voice tracks from Bill Melendez. The soundtrack was composed by Christophe Beck, with contributions by Meghan Trainor and David Benoit, including original tracks from Vince Guaraldi.