“The Smurfs” was originally scheduled to be released on December 17th, 2010, then it was moved to July 29th, 2011. It was then switched to Wednesday August 3rd, 2011, and is now back to Friday July 29th, 2011. What the Smurf is going on? Apparently, after Fox moved it’s release of “Rise of the Apes” to August 5th, the folks at Columbia Pictures decided they didn’t want their little blue friends to have to fight that battle, knowing they would lose the 3-day box office weekend.
But here’s the thing I don’t understand: “The Smurfs” will now be going up against “Cowboys & Aliens”, which will likely be a tougher foe at the box office than “Apes”. “The Smurfs” could now be an automatic lock for second place that weekend. I wish the studio had stuck with the August 3rd release, or had moved the opening to the middle of August to give kids a good, last-minute movie option before going back to school.
But the good news from all of this is that we’ll get to see “The Smurfs” sooner than expected. The live action/animated comedy stars Neil Patrick Harris, Hank Azaria, and features the voices of Katy Perry, Jonathan Winters, George Lopez, Jeff Foxworthy, Paul Reubens and many more. I only hope all of this date shifting isn’t because the Columbia isn’t happy with the finished product.