Prospect Of Dueling 'Smurfs' Projects Makes Us Want To Smurf Hollywood

STV — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:10:00 EDT

And here we thought the future of the Smurfs franchise in America was merely an esoteric quarterly concern at Defamer — that the talk we'd heard a while back about some feature-length updating was mere Euro-rumor. But the impossible blue dream of about 350 emotionally stunted children of the '80s inched closer to reality Monday when Sony Pictures Animation announced it had acquired the domestic rights to develop a Smurfs movie at last.

We're not sure where this puts the original project we'd privately cherished a few months ago, but you won't hear us tell you the world isn't big enough for a pair of Smurfs films — especially something blending live-action, animation and such unadulterated corporate dorkdom:

Smurfs marks SPA's first hybrid film — a subgenre that proved popular given the success of 20th Century Fox's Alvin and the Chipmunks. ... [Sony Pictures Entertainment] digital production prexy Bob Osher said the studio plans to rely on SPA for the film's character animation, and Imageworks — which was recently taken off the sale block — for its visual effects.

"The Smurfs are one of the best-known franchises, and among the most beloved collection of characters in the world," Columbia co-president Doug Belgrad said. "We're very excited to introduce a new generation to Papa Smurf, Smurfette and the other smurftastic Smurfs in all of their 'three-apple-tall' glory."

Columbia and Sony are negotiating with Shrek 2/3 screenwriters David Stem and David Weiss for a script introducing a new Mushroom Village to our complex times — perhaps not narratively or with regard to the creatues' notorious asexuality, but rather as the highly charged battleground where Chris Rock, George Lopez, Cheech Marin and the rest of Hollywood's multi-ethnic voice-talent A-list further confound expectations over what a Smurf actually is.

Col, SPA send 'Smurfs' to bigscreen [Variety]

First Look At 'The Smurfs' Makes Us Hope For PG-13 Rating, No Disneyfication

Molly Friedman — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:03:18 EST

Even before we knew what "smokin' somethin'" meant, we knew that the creators of The Smurfs were smokin' a little somethin' somethin'. After all, anyone who would create a world inhabited by little blue men who spoke in a a trippy language and lived in magic mushrooms had to be one of those "Mary Jane smokin' hippies" that our parents always warned us about. So after seeing some stills from the upcoming Smurfs movie, we're enthralled to see that the French animators who are making the film sure seem to be smokin' somethin' too. Seems as though this adaptation will finally tell the tale the way it was meant to be told: darkly.

Based on this first look at the Smurfs and Mushroom Village, coupled with producer Jordan Kerner's earlier commentary on the flick's vision, we're starting to feel confident that we won't have another Alvin And The Chipmunks disaster on our hands. Kerner says he wants to make The Smurfs feel like an "animated Lord of the Rings ... we'll learn [more] about Gargamel and Smurf Soup and how all that began and what really goes on in that castle. What his backstory really was." Considering the fact that The Smurfs were originally a parody on the (very serious!) language war between the French and Danish people of Belgium and that director Colin Brady has films like ET and Magnolia on his resume, we can't help but be optimistic that they'll get this one right.

FIRST LOOK: THE SMURF MOVIE [SlashFilm]
THE LATEST ON 'SMURFS' MOVIE AND 'MIGHTY DUCK 4' [MovieHole]

Gawker: defamer, the smurfs

Prospect Of Dueling 'Smurfs' Projects Makes Us Want To Smurf Hollywood

First Look At 'The Smurfs' Makes Us Hope For PG-13 Rating, No Disneyfication