Oh lord. The Smurfs film seems to be going ahead without anyone raising a hand and asking why. Not only that but the Smurfs seem to be heading towards a...now brace yourselves...trilogy. In an interview the producer Jordan Kerner talked about some of the depressing plans and preparation.

From Moviehole through Coming Soon:

"It's a 3-D/CG Smurfs...You just can't make those guys live – it'd be a little weird, but a 3D Shrek world of them - that's fantastic."

"Having seen all 234 episodes of the show, numerous times, Herb Ratner and I have been working really hard at looking where all the holes were in the episodes - ya'know, like all of a sudden another woman appears, it's not just smurfette – and what we've done is we've plugged all those holes in a trilogy of three movies, and we reveal things as we go along."...

...The "Smurfs" trilogy will be "the animated Lord of the Rings – through the world of these idiots. Because they're sweet characters but they're goofs. It's a comic version, but still very heartfelt, version of Lord of the Rings – though not literally Lord of the Rings, but an epic story like that...

...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."

He wouldn't confirm casting, and when asked about John Lithgow he smiled and said that was interesting, he did like Lithgow.

Frankly though I just don't see this as capturing the kids interest, do you? Maybe I'm out of touch and perhaps Smurfs are loved by kids, but none that I know. It's certainly more a harping back to the older days of cartoons, kind of like making a film of Mr Benn, or Bagpuss.