A Smurfin' Movie Deal
Tuesday July 19 6:13 PM ET
Fans of a certain animated tribe of small, blue woodland creatures haven't gotten a lot of love lately: No new TV episodes, no old TV episodes on DVD (outside of a couple of import releases), no real news on a long-rumored movie.
Now, finally, things are looking rather smurfin'.
A 3-D, CGI-animated Smurfs feature film will bow in theaters in 2008, Daily Variety reported Tuesday. The extravaganza from Paramount's Nickelodeon Movies will be the first in a planned trilogy, it said. According to Newsweek, the project has been trying to get off the ground since at least 2003.
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Word of the done deal comes a week after DreamWorks and Paramount set a July 4, 2007, release date for The Transformers, another animated TV series due for a big-screen makeover. But while Transformers fandom has thrived, fueled by new series and product, the smaller legions of Smurf faithful have waited.
"Dude, a Smurf movie?" went a message-board post on TheMovieBlog.com last month after Newsweek noted a film was nigh. "That's the smurfing best thing I've heard in smurfing forever."
Like the Transformers, the Smurfs were a phenomenon of the 1980s, unless one lived in Europe, where the characters have been mainstays since 1958, when Belgian artist Pierre Culliford, better known as Peyo, introduced them in the comic pages. The new movie's planned release date supposedly is tied to Smurfdom's upcoming 50th birthday.
Peyo's creations--the aforementioned small, blue woodland creatures who lived in homes shaped like mushrooms, whistled happy tunes, conjugated the word "smurf" in any way they saw fit, and named themselves Ramones-style (Papa Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf, etc.)--blew up as big as any Transformer robot in 1981 when The Smurfs debuted on NBC. The Hanna-Barbera-produced series won two Daytime Emmys, moved much merchandise, from Smurf-Berry Crunch cereal to countless figurines, and dominated Saturday morning TV until 1990. A 1983 big-screen adventure, The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, grossed $11 million, per the box-office site The-Numbers.com, even though it was nothing more than a retitled, redubbed version of a 1976 Belgian-produced movie.
There was no word on voice actors for the new film. The Smurfs' family recently lost Gargamel, the bad, and Baby Smurf, the good, in the death of performer Paul Winchell. Don Messick, who voiced Papa Smurf and others, died in 1997. Smurfette, meanwhile, lives. Lucille Bliss, who gave high-pitched voice to the tribe's lone female member, is 76, and still working.
As for Peyo, he died in 1992. His progeny, however, has kept right on their merry way.
I'm not sure how to take this but I'm kind of upset about this being a CG film. Also anyone else in shoke to find out that the Smurfs are 50.
I'm almost getting tired of all the CG films. But a smurfs CG film? That's pure w00tness, man! That would be totally awesome to see their old village recreated in striking 3D! I say, I can't wait 'til 2008!
*Sigh* Care Bears...Popeye...now Smurfs get the treatment...
~Neo
Dubsie told me about this and I was a bit weirded out at first, but I doubt this is anything too bad. Smurfs may not translate well into a movie format, but it'll be a nice thing for the kids and that's who count
The thought of the Smurfs in 3D scares the scooter out of me.
*Sigh* Care Bears...Popeye...now Smurfs get the treatment...
Wait, what? Care Bears has a CG movie? Or are you just referring to the commercials? And what's this about Popeye?
Popeye had a live action movie, if that's what he/she means.
2008! What a way away. Anyway...Smurfs are cool, so this movie might be a good idea. I'll probably go see it.
All I can say is this:
I hope it isn't like the Underdog movie, where humans are real and the rest is CGed in.
Urgh.....Underdog. xx;;
Geez, the Magic Roundabout was weird enough. What's next, Will O' The Wisp?
It will be next, I'll bet my entire collection of DVDs (about 100 at the last count) on it.
Bucky O'Hare needs a movie so bad.
Quote:
I hope it isn't like the Underdog movie, where humans are real and the rest is CGed in.
What?! There was an Underdog movie? I loved Underdog. When did it come out?
I think Bucky got a movie. Although it might have just been a bunch of episodes.
Now what we really need is a movie about Captain Planet! He'll save the world from oil spills and deforestation!
What Super Rayzor said. Underdog was my dog. *slammed* I didn't know he had a movie. I might have to rent it or something.