Paramount Theaters’ new live-action hybrid film The Smurfs Movie will release across the country on February 14, 2025. This will be the fourth movie in The Smurfs franchise to be released this millennium, as Sony Pictures produced renditions in 2011, 2013, and 2017.
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Now with the rights to the blue cartoon creatures, Paramount has employed Rihanna to voice-act in the lead role of Smurfette, per Variety and IndieWire. Paramount Animation’s president Ramsey Naito explained at CinemaCon in Las Vegas that the movie will “explore themes of identity and ask the central question, ‘What is a Smurf?'”
Rihanna joined the Paramount panel on Thursday (April 27) to speak to the CinemaCon crowd. “I tried to get the Papa Smurf role but it didn’t work out,” Rihanna joked. The singer and Paramount revealed that she will also help produce the film and write original music for the soundtrack.
Later, the world-famous pop star spoke more in-depth about her experience recording lines for The Smurfs Movie. Rihanna confirmed she is already in the third trimester of pregnancy with her second child, and said the Paramount Animation team made the process as enjoyable and easy for her as possible.
“Getting to do animation is a fun journey for me,” she said. “I’m usually front and center with everything with my likeness…but this was fun. I got to imagine, I got to show up in my pajamas in my third trimester and be a blue badass. … I hope this gives me a little bit of cool points with my kids one day.”
The Smurfs Movie will be directed by Christopher Miller, best known for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and The Lego Movie (2014). Plus, the script is written by Pam Brady, who worked previously on Comedy Central animated series South Park.
The news comes less than a year after Rihanna delivered two songs for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) soundtrack, “Lift Me Up” and “Born Again,” ending a years-long hiatus from releasing music.
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