Smurfs Movie Trailer Reveals First Footage From Comics-Inspired Reboot

Paramount Pictures has unveiled the Smurftastic first trailer for Smurfs. The CG-animated Smurfs reboot is based on the comic strips and graphic novels by Peyo, and features the music and voice of Rihanna as Smurfette (a creation of the sorcerer Gargamel before she undergoes Papa Smurf’s special smurfification procedure). Rihanna, an Oscar nominee for her song “Lift Me Up” from 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, wrote and performed the original songs for the film, described as a comedic, musical adventure “that sets out to answer one of life’s biggest questions: What is a Smurf?”

Smurf out the just-released Smurfs trailer below.

Rihanna leads a star-studded cast that includes the voices of Nick Offerman (The Last of Us), Natasha Lyonne (The Fantastic Four: First Steps), JP Karliak (X-Men ’97), Daniel Levy (Schitt’s Creek), Amy Sedaris (Star Wars: The Mandalorian), Nick Kroll (Big Mouth), James Corden (Peter Rabbit), Octavia Spencer (The Help), Hannah Waddingham (The Fall Guy), Sandra Oh (Invincible), Alex Winter (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure), Xolo Maridueña (Blue Beetle), and Billie Lourd (American Horror Story), with John Goodman (Monsters, Inc.) and Kurt Russell (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2).

2011’s Puss in Boots director Chris Miller — a DreamWorks Animation veteran who served as a story artist on 2001’s Shrek and 2005’s Madagascar, and story consultant on 2019’s The Addams Family — is directing from a script by South Park and Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken writer Pam Brady.

“The DNA in Peyo’s original drawings guide so many creative choices in the film,” Miller said during the 2024 Annecy Animation Festival. “It’s the blueprint for the kind of film I want to make. All of the action lines and thought bubbles from the comics are going in the movie, and the comics have inspired the style of animation to be fun and buoyant, with plenty of squash and stretch.”

Miller continued, “You have to ask yourself, ‘What are the things that everyone knows and loves?’ And you have to respect it and honor it.’ The original [Smurfs] comics were our blueprint, also aesthetically, and then you look for opportunities within that. You have the Smurfs village, for example, this mysterious, magical place. You can reinvent it a bit or add to the lore. ‘How did they get there? Why are they there?’”

Rihanna is also producing the animated Smurfs movie alongside Ryan Harris (The Lego Batman Movie), and Laurence “Jay” Brown and Tyran “Ty-Ty” Smith, music executives at Rihanna’s label, the Jay-Z-founded Roc Nation.

From Paramount Animation (Transformers One) and Nickelodeon Movies (The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants), Smurfs will smurfify theaters on July 18.