CANNES: “We are looking closely at India,” said Peanuts Worldwide SVP media Kim Towner during the MipJunior keynote which focused on the glorious 50 years of Peanuts and the 65th anniversary of the comic strip. While Peanuts may make in-roads to India in the future, currently the important markets for it are Japan, China, Brazil and Germany, apart from the US and France.
The keynote themed: ‘Peanuts Re-imagined’ was moderated by author and consultant Christopher Erbes and was attended by France Télévisions executive director Julien Borde, Normaal Animation producer Alexis Lavillat and Towner. It focused on the new TV series, a huge theatrical premiere and many other innovative initiatives being undertaken by Peanuts.
The year is big for Peanuts which has restored its entire library to 4K quality for modern viewers. “We have re-signed the deal with ABC for five years,” announced Towner. Not only this, the company has done production deals with Fox and Blue Sky as well. Talking about the other developments, Towner said that Peanuts: The Movie, a 3D CGI animation will see its premier in November 2015. “With development budget of $100 million, the movie will be distributed in over 100 countries. Another $100 million will be put for marketing the property,” she said.
With audience moving towards digital, Peanuts is also looking at partnering with a major gaming company. “We will announce the partnership soon,” added Towner. With this, Peanuts aims at building on the 15 million downloads of its existing apps. Currently, the animation sees one billion social media impressions in a year. “We see 1.8 million engagements at any given week,” she said, while adding that “2015 is the year of Peanuts.”
Talking about its strategy on apps, Towner said that while currently most of the apps are games for kids, they do realise the diverse audience.
The key to Peanuts is to make it funny and heartwarming for kids. “We want to find humour for kids,” said Lavillat.
Giving a background to the new show, which will be a seven minute episode, Borde said that Peanuts has been re-imagined, since family oriented programming is important for television today.