Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation are going to team up to make a feature film out of the blue-colored characters created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo.
- Jun 10, 2008
AceShowbiz - A couple of years back, movie producer Jordan Kerner revealed that "The Smurfs", a group of small sky blue forest-dwelling creatures made famous by the comic book series created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo, is planned to be developed into animated movies. Years passed by and the particular project seems to be going out of the movie industry's radar. But, it doesn't mean that the adaptation movie is canceled since what happens suggested otherwise.
The newest report concerning the 3-D CGI feature film explained that Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation will team up to bring the flick to the big screen. The collaboration is made possible after the former studio have agreed to co-finance the film which rights have been obtained by the latter production company through Kerner who has secured the rights in 2002. The two studios are now going forward with the project by negotiating with David Stem and David Weiss, the writers of "Shrek 2" and "Shrek the Third", to sign them for penning the script.
"Smurfs" originally appeared in the Johan and Peewit comic book series. The characters then spawned into comic book series as well as Hanna-Barbera Productions' animated television series which was widely popular in the '80s. On the idea on making a movie out of the lovable blue creatures, Kerner revealed that it came out after he talked with Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman, Michael Lynton, stating, "He relished them as I do and suggested that it should be a live-action/CG film. (Studio topper) Amy (Pascal) felt equally that there was potentially a series of films in the making."
