sometimes Smurfs come back. And Rihanna with them…

Can you remember the Smurfs, those nice little blue ones, targeted in my university thesis, exonerated from the accusation of being an apologetic tool of communism, and quite well-known by the children of any age, throughout the world?
Well, in 2023 it happens the 65^th anniversary since their first appearance in comics, and we are delighted to learn that a new film based on their adventures is going to be released! (To be precise, on February 14, 2025 but -you know- two years can pass away very rapidly…)
The film will be ‘The Smurfs Musical’, will be directed by Chris Miller, and will be born as a a joint venture between Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies as part of their partnership inked last year. At CinemaCon 2023, Paramount revealed that Rihanna will play as Smurfette (as a voice actress, of course), and create and perform her own music for the film. (I could be Papa Smurf, who knows?)
The film will be released twelve years after ‘The Smurfs 2’, directed by Raja Gosnell, and produced by Sony Pictures Animation and Columbia Pictures. The blue brand of the Smurfs is now within the Paramount fold, and ‘The Smurfs Musical’ will be the beginning of a massive slate of new projects involving the Smurfs as Paramount seeks to capitalize on the brand’s massive reach.
‘The Smurfs Musical’ also features a prominent writer in Pam Brady (‘South Park’, ‘Team America: World Police’), and seems going to be born under the best auspices as for the direction as well, given that the Oscar-nominated Chris Miller has been already involved in very interesting animated projects, such as ‘The Penguins of Madagascar’ and ‘Shrek the Third’. Latifa Ouaou, the executive vice president of movies and global franchises for Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation, is overseeing the development of the new film alongside Emily Nordwind.
As everyone remembers,

the little blue creatures themselves were originally created by the Belgian Pierre Culliford, better known by his pen-name Peyo, as comic characters, become a massive global franchise in films, television shows, merchandising, and much more.