Release Date: August 14th, 2015 Who doesn't love The Smurfs? Whoever has seen the horrendous live action/CGI hybrid adaptations, that's who! 2011's The Smurfs was rinsed by critics, but raked in a whopping $563 million, more than five-times its budget, ensuring that a second film was on the cards. But that's not all. A third film was announced in May 2012, just two weeks after production on The Smurfs 2 was itself announced, making it clear that Columbia Pictures were very much putting their cart before their horse. As it turns out, The Smurfs 2 did good business (making $347 million, over three-times its budget), but was considerably down on the success of the first film, suggesting that a third film would probably see returns diminish even more. Still, I suppose from Columbia's perspective, they could churn out the most horrendous Smurfs movie possible and it'd probably still make at least double its budget, shy of some sort of summer-wide illness which only targets children between the ages of 3 and 8. I for one just hope that Hank Azaria is back for part three. His outrageous performance as the evil Gargamel is just about the only tolerable part of these movies.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
