Where to watch The Smurfs (2011)

Trivia & production notes

• Producer Jordan Kerner spent five years pursuing the rights, sending his first letter to Lafig Belgium in 1997 before finally gaining approval in 2002 after Peyo's heirs read his Charlotte's Web adaptation.
• Quentin Tarantino was considered to voice Brainy Smurf but negotiations fell through.
• Three entirely new Smurf characters—Narrator, Crazy, and Gutsy—were created for the film with the blessing of the licensing team.
• Sony Pictures Animation chairman-CEO Michael Lynton, who grew up watching The Smurfs in the Netherlands, suggested the film shift from pure CGI to a live-action and CGI hybrid.
• The filmmakers used 7-and-a-half-inch tall physical models of the Smurfs during live-action scenes so actors could match their eyelines with the characters before animation.
• Production sourced rare parts for Gargamel's dungeon set from garage sales, flea markets, eBay, and Craigslist, taking three months to complete the construction.
• During filming with actors and Smurfs, each Smurf was represented by a different colored dot that actors had to memorize to maintain proper positioning and eyelines.
• The Smurfs characters required 268 animators at Sony Pictures Imageworks to spend approximately 358,000 hours in post-production.
• The village of Júzcar, Spain, painted itself entirely blue for the film's world premiere in June 2011, using 4,000 liters of paint on buildings including the church; residents voted to keep the blue color after tourism increased.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Smurfs (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.