The Smurfs (2016 animated film)

The Smurfs is a 2016 American computer-animated jukebox musical fantasy comedy-drama film, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, The Jim Henson Company, and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 55th Disney animated feature film, based on the comic book series by Belgium cartoonist Peyo, it was directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Garth Jennings, co-directed by Jared Bush (in his film feature directorial), John Musker, Rob Clements, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, for a screenplay by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, Bush, Phil Johnston, and for a story by Howard, Jennings, Bush, Aibel, Berger, and Jennifer Lee. The ensemble voice cast stars Jason Bateman, Neil Patrick Harris, Dustin Hoffman, Ginnifer Goodwin, Tika Sumpter, Charlie Day, Reese Witherspoon, Katy Perry, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, Dwayne Johnson, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly, Peter Dinklage, Kevin Hart, Sofia Vergara, J. K. Simmons, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Jay Pharaoh, Leslie Jones, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Natasha Rothwell, Trey Parker, Liam Neeson, Neal McDonough, and Jim Carrey.

Plot
In Smurf Village, the Smurfs prepare for the Festival of the Blue Moon. Papa Smurf sees a vision of Clumsy Smurf reaching for a dragon wand and evil wizard Gargamel capturing the Smurfs. In a world populated by anthropomorphic mammals of Zootopia, Judy Hopps is assigned to parking duty by Chief Bogo, koala Buster Moon owns a struggling theater, and is threatened with foreclosure by bank representative llama Judith. Shortly after, Clumsy leaves to pick smurfroot and ends up leading Gargamel into the village. Afterwards, Judy meets Nick at ice cream, when a baby elephant want a jumbo pop. The Smurfs flee and Clumsy unknowingly runs for the Forbidden Falls, with Papa, Smurfette, Grouchy, Brainy and Gutsy going after him. The Blue Moon appears and creates a vortex that spirits them to Zootopia. Gargamel and his pet cat Azrael follow them. Buster decides to hold a singing competition with a prize of $1,000, but a typo made by his elderly assistant iguana Miss Crawly adds two extra zeros to the prize money. The misprinted flyers are blown out of the window by a fan before they can be proofread, and float across the city.

The Smurfs end up in the apartment of Judy and Nick. After they explain their situation, Judy & Nick befriend them and allow them to stay in their apartment. The same time, it causes a massive power outage across the Pacific Northwest. The Department of Defense reluctantly enlists the services of eccentric roboticist and scientific genius Dr. Ivoshan and C.O.V.N.E.T agents, a top secret national security facility disguised as a cement factory, whose mission is to investigate threats of extraterrestrial attacks, and to determine the cause. The next day, needing to find a "stargazer", the Smurfs follow Nick to his workplace at The Hank Croc Company, believing he is a fortune-teller. Crowds of animals gather to audition, and Buster selects his contestants. Among them are housewife and mother of 25 piglets Rosita; punk-rock porcupine Ash; teenage gorilla Johnny, son of a criminal gang leader named Big Daddy; street musician mouse Mike; and an exuberant pig named Gunter; and Judy will works with Buster. Teenage elephant Meena fails her audition due to stage fright, Ash's self-absorbed boyfriend and co-auditionee Lance is upset to be dismissed from the contest, and Rosita is paired with Gunter for a dance routine. After Buster discovers the flyers advertise a prize of $100,000, he joins his friend sheep Eddie on a visit to Eddie's wealthy grandmother, former theater superstar Nana Noodleman. Nana is reluctant to sponsor the prize money, but agrees to attend a private preview of the show before making a decision.

Pressured by her grandfather, Meena attempts to request a second audition, but settles on being Buster's stagehand instead. After some acts withdraw from the competition, Meena is offered a spot in the show, but again struggles to overcome her fear. Further problems soon arise. Rosita flounders in her dance routine with Gunter, believing her motherly duties have caused her to lose her passion. However, Shan discovers Smurfs on social media. He contacts the police, falsely claiming that Smurfs is illegally aliens, and leads a citywide manhunt for him. COVNET henchmen after the former refuses the businessman’s bribe. Nick and Judy are confronted by Ivoshan, who falsely labels Nick a domestic terrorist. Owen and Emily escape with Smurfs and Stitch in Finnick's van, while several neighbors successfully fend off Shan’s bodyguards. Lance cheats on Ash, causing her to break up with him, and later to break down crying during a rehearsal. Mike, assuming he will win the competition, takes out a massive loan from the bank to buy a flashy car and swindles a group of bears in a card game. Johnny, forced by Big Daddy to partake in a heist as a getaway driver, sneaks away to a rehearsal. Traffic prevents Johnny from returning to the heist in time, resulting in the arrest and incarceration of Big Daddy and his gang, straining their relationship.

After an accident causes stage lights to fall and break, Buster has the stage rebuilt and fills a glass tank with water so that luminescent squids can be used to light the stage. Desperate, Johnny attempts to steal the prize money for his father's bail, but when he sees a note on Buster's desk praising his talents, Johnny resolves to focus on his musical career instead. Meanwhile, Gargamel extracts Smurf essence from a lock of Smurfette's hair and impresses Nick's boss, Hank, by using the essence to restore her elderly father's youth. At the same time, Rosita regains her passion for dancing while grocery shopping, and Ash composes a song that Buster likes.

Upon recognizing Nick, Gargamel chases him and the Smurfs into the Toy Store and causes chaos while trying to catch them, even C.O.V.N.E.T. agents. Gargamel is arrested and jailed, but manages to escapes the prison with the aid of a swarm of flies. On the day of the preview, the bears Mike had cheated, locate him, and demand their money back. Mike directs them to Buster; the bears break open the prize chest, but it is nowhere near $100,000. Shocked by the lack of money, the rest of the contestants question Buster, and the squid tank shatters under everyone's weight. The flooded theater implodes and Judith repossesses the lot, while a disheartened Buster takes up residence with Eddie and supports himself by washing cars. Papa manages to calculate the night he and the others can return home, but needs to work out a spell. Nick reveals to Judy that he became a con artist because, as a child, he tried to join the Junior Ranger Scouts, but was bullied and rejected simply for being a fox.

Meanwhile, Ivoshan, discovering that one of Smurf's essences holds an almost limitless amount of electrical energy, plans to capture Smurfs to use his powers for his machines. While the Smurfs bond with Nick and Judy, Papa decides to search a nearby bookstore in order to locate the spell. However, he angrily tells Clumsy that send the wrong files, but Judy is disappointed with Nick, how Clumsy made a mistake. The Smurfs find the book L’Histoire des Schtroumpfs by researcher Peyo, containing the spell to turn the moon blue. Gargamel sneaks into the bookstore and finds a dragon wand, transferring his magic into it and uses it to capture Papa. At the same time is intercepted by law enforcement and Smurfs is airlifted via truck to Smurfs. Maddie soon learns Bridwell did not die, so she and Emily try to save the Smurfs from being operated on at COVNET, once again aided by friends from their neighborhood. They break into COVNET's headquarters and rescue Smurfs, who then flees through the city with Emily riding on Stitch.

Meena goes to the rubble of the theater and sings out loud to music on her headphones, inspiring Buster and Judy to stage an outdoor show. Despite this, Nick tells Hank that he created the Blue Moon ad. After increasing the wand's power with Smurf essence extracted from Papa's DNA, Gargamel is confronted by the entire Smurf village, having been summoned by the blue moon which opened the portal to their world. Despite attempts from Judith to halt the show, it takes place on the lot of the former theater, with Meena's and Rosita's families in attendance. More animals are drawn into the audience when the show is broadcast live on the local news. Rosita's husband Norman is roused by his wife's talent, Big Daddy breaks out of prison and travels to the lot to reconcile with Johnny and apologize, Lance is impressed by Ash's original rock song "Set It All Free," the bears find Mike and chase him away, as the Smurf army battles Gargamel, Smurfette defeats Azrael and saves Papa. Gargamel is knocked out by Nick, who drops the dragon wand in the process. Meena overcomes her stage fright and gives an enthusiastic performance, and Clumsy tries to catch it, and to Papa's surprise, is successful and sends Gargamel flying into the path of a bus, carrying him away. Emily reunites with Bridwell and desperately seeks his aid as a large crowd gathers. He tells her he can’t do anything with the Smurfs. Bridwell advises Emily to advocate for Smurfs and herself, and that being different is a gift. Nick explains to everyone the importance of love, regardless of differences. However, Ivoshan, who arrived right after Nick finished her monologue, orders the police chief to see who Smurfs's owner is by scanning an ID chip his scientists secretly implanted earlier. When the chip identifies Nick, Buster, Judy, Maddie and Emily as Smurts's rightful owner, the police inform him that he will be fined for lying to them and wasting police resources. Emily and Judy reunite with Maggie and Packard reverses the family’s eviction, making Clifford his new family. The Smurfs bid Nick, Buster and Judy farewell and return to Smurf Village. The show is a success and impresses Nana who was in the audience.

A month later, Judy and Nick get married and get a baby, whom they name Blue. Even Buster and Maddie have a baby name Moon, even the government erases all evidence of the events, including records of Ivoshan's existence. She purchases the lot, and the theater is rebuilt and reopened, and the Smurfs rebuild their village in the style of Zootopia.

Voice Cast

 * Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde, a sly red fox who is a small-time con artist and the new VP of marketing at The Hank Croc Company.
 * Kath Soucie voices a younger Nick Wilde.
 * Neil Patrick Harris as Buster Moon, an optimistic koala who plans to save his theater from closure by holding a singing competition.
 * Dustin Hoffman as Papa Smurf, the leader of the Smurfs.
 * Jim Carrey as Gargamel, the arch-nemesis of the Smurfs who plots to use the Smurfs as part of a spell that would turn lead into gold. As opposed to the television show where Gargamel's goal is to use the Smurfs as the key ingredient in an alchemical formula to create the gold or eat them or destroy them, in the film he wants to capture them to serve as charms, "whose mystical essence will make his inept magic more powerful — and dangerous".
 * Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps, a young optimistic rabbit from Bunnyburrow and a newly appointed member of the Zootopia Police Department, assigned to the 1st Precinct and Nick's love interest.
 * Tika Sumpter as Maddie Wilde, Nick's sister.
 * Charlie Day as Clumsy Smurf, the dimwitted but friendly smurf. Day commented on his character's personality change from the cartoon series saying, "I was familiar with Clumsy from the TV series, where he had that Southern twang. I went back and watched that, and then Howard, Lasseter and I talked about it. We decided to make Clumsy a little simpler, a little sweeter. His voice is pitched higher than my normal speaking voice – it's full of joy, optimism, and enthusiasm for life. Clumsy isn't trying to mess anything up for anybody — he's just clumsy, and actually, he's tired of being clumsy".
 * Katy Perry as Smurfette, the female of the Smurfs. About gaining the voice role, Perry said: "They had done a blind test where they took certain voices from previous interviews and matched them with the character. They liked my voice without even knowing who it was, and when they found out it was me, they thought that would work out. My personality was just a plus!"
 * Reese Witherspoon as Rosita, a pig who gave up her teenage music dreams to become a devoted housewife, and mother of 25 piglets
 * Seth MacFarlane as Mike, a white mouse street singer with a big Frank Sinatra-esque voice and an arrogant attitude
 * Dwayne Johnson as Gutsy Smurf, one of three Smurfs created specifically for the film and who is Scottish, wears a kilt and has sideburns. The character is also described as the "action-hero" of the film
 * Peter Dinklage as Grouchy Smurf, a smurf who is always grouchy.
 * Kevin Hart as Brainy Smurf, the smartest Smurf, below Papa Smurf. Quentin Tarantino was up to voice him, but dropped out.
 * Scarlett Johansson as Ash, a teenage porcupine punk rocker who takes part in an alternative-rock music duo with her boyfriend Lance
 * Danny McBride as Eddie Noodleman, a sheep and Buster's friend who doubts the future of the theater
 * Taron Egerton as Johnny, a teenage gorilla who wants to sing, though his father would rather have him follow his criminal footsteps
 * Tori Kelly as Meena, a teenage elephant with an exquisite voice and severe stage fright
 * Idris Elba as Chief Bogo, an African buffalo who is the police chief of the Zootopia Police Department's 1st Precinct.
 * Jenny Slate as Dawn Bellwether, a diminutive sheep who is the assistant mayor of Zootopia.
 * Trey Parker as Dr. Ivoshan
 * Sofia Vergara as Nana Noodleman, Eddie's grandmother who was a famous singer in her glory days
 * Jennifer Hudson as Young Nana
 * Garth Jennings as Miss Crawly, an elderly iguana with a glass eye who is Buster's administrative assistant
 * Nate Torrence as Benjamin Clawhauser, an obese cheetah who works as a dispatcher and desk sergeant for the Zootopia Police Department's 1st Precinct.
 * Bonnie Hunt as Bonnie Hopps, a European rabbit from Bunnyburrow who is Judy Hopps' mother.
 * Don Lake as Stu Hopps, a European rabbit from Bunnyburrow who is Judy Hopps' father and a carrot farmer.
 * Natasha Rothwell as Rachel Hopps, a European rabbit from Bunnyburrow who is Judy Hopps' older sister who dislikes Nick and frequently attempts to encourage her parents and Judy to leave him.
 * Peter Serafinowicz as Big Daddy, a gorilla gang leader who wants his son Johnny to follow in his crime business
 * Nick Kroll as Gunter, a passionate dancing pig who is partnered with Rosita for the show
 * Sebastian Maniscalco as Handy Smurf, a hard-working smurf.
 * Tom Kenny as Jokey Smurf, a smurf who plays pranks on others.
 * Fred Tatasciore as Hefty Smurf, a strong smurf with a tattoo of a heart.
 * John Oliver as Vanity Smurf, a smurf who is obsessed with his looks.
 * Eric Bauza as Greedy Smurf, a smurf who loves smurfberries.
 * Eric Jacobson as Baker Smurf, a smurf who loves to bake.
 * Rob Riggle as Farmer Smurf, a smurf who is a farmer.
 * Wolfgang Puck as Chef Smurf, a smurf who loves to cook.
 * John Kassir as Crazy Smurf, the alarm for the village and the second Smurf created specifically for the film
 * Tom Kane as Narrator Smurf, a smurf with a deep narrator voice and the third Smurf created specifically for the film.
 * Beck Bennett as Lance, a porcupine and Ash's self-absorbed boyfriend
 * Neal McDonough as Major Bennington, a soldier tasked with assisting Ivoshan (whom he dislikes) in his efforts to capture Smurfs.
 * Lee Majdoub as Agent Stone, a government agent who works for Ivoshan.
 * Jay Pharoah as Meena's grandfather, who pressures her to overcome her stage fright
 * Nick Offerman as Norman, a pig and Rosita's workaholic husband
 * Leslie Jones as Meena's mother
 * Rhea Perlman as Judith, a brown llama from the bank who warns Buster that his theater will be repossessed if he does not pay
 * Laraine Newman as Meena's grandmother
 * Adam Buxton as Stan, a gorilla who is a member of Big Daddy's gang
 * Brad Morris as an unnamed baboon whom Mike attacks for not donating more money to his street performances
 * Bill Farmer as Bob, a dog who documents Buster's singing competition
 * Liam Neeson as Commander Walters, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who orders Ivoshan to investigate the power outage caused by Smurfs.
 * Frank Welker as Azrael, Gargamel's cat. Welker provided the voice of Hefty Smurf and other characters in the 1980s cartoon series.

The voices of Rosita and Norman's piglet children were provided by Oscar, Leo, Caspar, and Asa Jennings, the children of Garth Jennings. Jennings had directors Edgar Wright (as a goat) and Wes Anderson (as Daniel, a giraffe who auditions with the song "Ben") provide "additional voices", continuing a tradition of the three friends appearing in each other's films. An archival recording of Shooby Taylor, who died in 2003, singing "Stout-Hearted Men" was used for the singing voice of a hippopotamus.

Development
In 1997, producer Brian Henson sent the first "of a series of letters" to The Smurfs’ licensing agent Lafig Belgium expressing interest in making a feature film. Peyo's daughter Véronique Culliford and family had wanted to make a Smurfs film for years and said that Henson was the first person to pitch a film that shared their "vision and enthusiasm". In 2006, Henson said the film was planned to be a trilogy and would explain more of Gargamel's backstory. He stated, "We'll learn [more] about Gargamel and Smurf Soup and how all that began and what really goes on in that castle. What his backstory really was. There's an all-powerful wizard... there's all sorts of things that get revealed as we go along". Early animation footage was leaked on the internet in early 2008. The filmmakers were allowed to create three new Smurfs for the film – Narrator, Crazy, and Gutsy. In May 2012, it was reported that DreamWorks Animation and Pacific Data Images would produce a CGI animated film based on the book. But in November 2012, it was reported that DreamWorks Animation was cancelled the project.

In March 2013, it was announced that Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Animation Studios obtained the film rights from Lafig Belgium. In May 2013, The Hollywood Reporter initially reported that Howard was directing the film and that Jason Bateman had been cast, but little else about the film was known at the time. The Smurfs was first officially announced on August 10, 2013, at the D23 Expo, with a July 2016 release date. On June 20, 2014, it was announced that Henson would be produced the film, making it the first Henson-produced film for Disney since Muppet Treasure Island. On November 2, 2015, it was announced that Michael Giacchino would compose the film's score, and Lin-Manuel Miranda would compose the film's songs.

Gargamel's dungeon under the Belvedere Castle, which included the "Smurfalator", was making.

Animation
Disney's most recent work on animating fur was for the titular character of the 2008 film Bolt, but the software they had used at the time was not ready for creating the realistic fur of the animals of The Smurfs. Therefore, the studio's IT engineers developed the fur-controlling software "iGroom", which gave character designers precise control over the brushing, shaping and shading of fur and made it possible to create a variety of eccentric character styles for each animal. The software was also able to control an unseen "imaginary" under-layer that gave fur a degree of plushness not seen before. This feature was used to create characters like Officer Clawhauser, who has a big head that is entirely made of spotted fur. Characters with noteworthy numbers of strands of hair or fur included both of the two lead characters, Nick Wilde, Buster Moon, Judy Hopps, Maddie Wilde & others, who each had around 2.5 million hairs; a giraffe with nine million strands of fur; a gerbil with 480,000 strands; and a rodent with more strands of hair than the 400,000 that were on Elsa's head in Frozen.

The Smurfs was the second time Disney used the Hyperion renderer, which they had first used on Big Hero 6. A new fur paradigm was added to the renderer to facilitate the creation of realistic images of the animals' dense fur. Nitro, a real-time display application developed since the making of Wreck-It Ralph, was used to make the fur more consistent, intact and subtle much more quickly, as opposed to the previous practice of having to predict how the fur would work while making and looking at silhouettes or poses for the character. The tree-and-plant generator Bonsai, first used in Frozen, was used to make numerous variations of trees with very detailed foliage. The Smurfs characters were created during post-production by 268 Walt Disney Animation Studios employees who spent around 358,000 hours animating. Character designer Allen Battino, a long time Kerner collaborator, was brought in to redesign the characters for CGI.

The Smurfs was produced in makeshift quarters in a giant warehouse in North Hollywood (together with Moana) while Disney Animation's headquarters in Burbank was being renovated. Additional, Jim Henson's Creature Shop was provided for Azrael, and Illumination Mac Guff, Sony Pictures Animation and Imageworks India adding for the animals and the Smurfs characters.

Sequels
In June 2016, Howard, Moore and Jennings were in talks about the possibility of a The Smurfs sequel. On January 25, 2017, Disney announced that a sequel to The Smurfs was in the works. Later that day, screenwriter Jared Bush confirmed that he is working on the film as a director. In April 2017, it was confirmed that directors Byron Howard and Garth Jennings returned the film along with producers Clark Spencer, Brian Henson and Toby Ascher. In August 2019, Teen Titans Go! creators Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic wants to directed for the sequel for The Smurfs. Later that day, Disney confirmed that Horvath and Jelenic to be co-directing In May 2021, Matthew Fogel was confirmed as screenwriter after previously scribing Illumination's Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022). According to Khary Payton, who has collaborated with Horvath and Jelenic on various projects at Warner Bros. Animation, the duo flew to Walt Disney Animation Studios a month after the release of their first feature film, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, in September 2018. Ed Skudder who previously worked with Horvath on Unikitty!, confirmed that he will returns. Disney officially confirmed the sequel in January 2019, with a release date of December 21, 2021, coincided Christmas. In April 2020, Disney shifted the film's release to June 22, 2022, coinciding of Global Smurfs Day, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lego sequence was done by 13-year-old Canadian animator Preston Mutanga and was added late in the movie