The Smurfs are ready for their close up!
Hollywood Newsroom is now Buzz Newsroom! Visit and bookmark our new site. Buzz is bigger and better, including sports, world news, gadgets and the entertainment news that you're used to. Same staff, just more stuff! Why Fark, Drudge and Huffington when you can Buzz!?Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation are bringing a live-action/animated “Smurfs” project to the bigscreen.
Sony obtained film rights to the blue-colored characters from Lafig Belgium via Jordan Kerner (”Charlotte’s Web”), who is producing. David Stem and David Weiss, who wrote the second and third installments in the “Shrek” franchise, are in negotiations to pen the screenplay.
Kerner secured film rights to the Smurfs property in 2002 and had been developing a 3-D CGI feature at Paramount/Nickelodeon, which has an option to co-finance the Columbia/SPA incarnation and distribute internationally. The Melrose studio has yet to make a decision on its role in the film.
“Smurfs” marks SPA’s first hybrid film — a subgenre that proved popular given the success of 20th Century Fox’s “Alvin and the Chipmunks” — and is the first project to go into development since Hannah Minghella was named prexy of production for the division in April. SPE 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.”
- from Variety
