I’m not convinced that the live-action/animation hybrid The Smurfs movie is destined to be terrible. It’ll probably be terrible, but it doesn’t have to be. The original Peyo comic books are very good, smart, often political. If you’ve read the one where the Smurf village devolves into civil war over questions of whether to use “Schtroumpf” (or, in English, “Smurf,” because that’s totally a real English word) at the beginning of a phrase or at the end of it — a sly reference to Belgian politics — you can see why Sony thinks there’s a Shrek-like franchise somewhere in there, because Peyo essentially created an escapist fairy tale with a streak of hip contemporary relevance. That describes what all non-Pixar animated movies aspire to be.
I’m not convinced that the live-action/animation hybrid The Smurfs movie is destined to be terrible. It’ll probably be terrible, but it doesn’t have to be. The original Peyo comic books are very good, smart, often political. If you’ve read the one where the Smurf village devolves into civil war over questions of whether to use “Schtroumpf” (or, in English, “Smurf,” because that’s totally a real English word) at the beginning of a phrase or at the end of it — a sly reference to Belgian politics — you can see why Sony thinks there’s a Shrek-like franchise somewhere in there, because Peyo essentially created an escapist fairy tale with a streak of hip contemporary relevance. That describes what all non-Pixar animated movies aspire to be.
And a live-action Gargamel probably makes more sense than trying to create him in CGI animation; it’s a lot easier to find an actor who fits the part (any suggestions?) than to make a human character look convincing in 3-D.
As the guy at the link says, it will probably suck because the guys who did Shrek 2 and 3 are writing it. But there is real potential for something that doesn’t suck.