Smurfs head for big-screen at Columbia Pictures
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Smurfs, those blue-skinned cartoon gnomes with short tails and white hats, are celebrating their 50th anniversary with a Hollywood movie deal announced on Tuesday by Columbia Pictures.
The Sony Corp.-owned studio said it has acquired motion picture rights to the Belgian-born characters from Lafig Belgium S.A. for a big-screen Smurfs adaptation mixing computer-graphic imagery and live action.
A similar “hybrid” treatment was recently given to another popular cartoon ensemble in the highly successful “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie from 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.
Like Alvin and his rodent companions, the Smurfs will be created by CGI technology and interact with real actors portraying humans.
I’m fighting an urge to crawl under my blankets and hibernate till this one passes us by.
(Technorati tags: Smurfs)
Only if they stick to the Smurfs/Se7en crossover story from Robot Chicken…
We are dealing with a Hollywood void of new ideas, new challenges.
Since I’ve heard about it, I keep thinking: Oh my god, WHY?
I suppose we have to live with it, and try not to think about it :D
Woohoo! Let’s teach another generation about personality archetypes and occupations!
Hefty
Brainy
Grouchy
Dreamy
Vanity
Handy
Painter
Jokey
Baker
Architect
Tailor
Reporter
Poet
…and the girl who was created to tempt and destroy them all.
Logic tells me I should despise the Smurfs by now; I want to so badly, but I just can’t do it. One second into that freaking song and suddenly it’s a lazy Saturday morning (or weekday afternoon) and school is an eternity away. Damn you nostalgia!!! You win again!
The scary thing is that whoever is quoted here calls ‘Alvin & the Chipmunks’ “highly successful”. It may have raked in the cash, but boy, was it an abomination!
In the biz, the only measure that counts is money.
Isn’t it sad, though? Look at what a lot of love for the story and retelling it in cinematic form did for Lord of the Rings? Sure, they had cough up the money for production and promotion, but at the end of it all they found themselves with 3 BILLION in box office revenue. And that is not counting DVD-releases, action figures, tie-ins and what-not. So yes it’s about the money, but a little quality goes a very long way.
Look at the ratio of dumb movies that make a lot of money to smart movies that make a lot of money. Being smart is hard and only occasionally lucrative. Being dumb is way easier, and way more lucrative, too.
There is no argument there, unfortunately ;-)
I also hear that there is a new Cabbage Patch movie, wich sounds really nice. I think it will be with computer graphics effects and maybe with some singing. Do you think the movie will be interested? My doughter loved the new veggietales movie so maybe she will be interesting in cabbage patch. have you hear anything about it or maybe see it yet? my doughter say it will be big sucess at the movies.