It's a blue day for Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The studios have just obtained the motion picture rights to the Smurfs, snagged from holdings company Lafig Belgium S.A. via producer Jordan Kerner.  They plan to develop a dynamic, combination live action/animation major motion picture based on the sky-blue classic characters.

David Stem and David Weiss (Shrek 2 and 3, The Rugrats Movie, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius) are in negotiations to write the  screenplay.  It's rumored that, this time around, there will be more than one Smurfette.

Best known in the U.S. for a long-running Hanna-Barbera cartoon, the Smurfs were created in 1958 by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, known throughout the world as Peyo.  The Smurfs - originally called Les Schtroumpfs, in French – were  created for a Belgian series of comic books, first as minor characters.  They soon took on a life of their own, however, and the peaceful little characters were featured in a best selling line of statuettes (selling over 300 million worldwide), models, games, toys, theme parks, and, of course, an immensely popular television series. 

Running as part of NBC's Saturday-morning lineup from 1981-1990, the cartoon was a huge critical and commercial success, twice winning Daytime Emmy Awards for Best Children's Entertainment Program, running for 256 episodes and inspiring seven specials.