A while back we talked about the potential Live Action Smurfs Movie that was being planned. No I am not talking about Members of the Finnish BDSM organisation SMFR who are called “Smurfs” because of the similarity of the names. I am talking about the movie about 3 apples high mythical folk from a dark age mushroom village.
Still don’t know what I am talking about? Wikipedia helps us out:
The Smurfs (Les Schtroumpfs) are a fictional group of small sky blue creatures who live in Smurf Village somewhere in the woods. The Belgian cartoonist Peyo introduced Smurfs to the world in a series of comic strips, making their first appearance in the Belgian comics magazine Le Journal de Spirou on October 23, 1958. The English-speaking world perhaps knows them best through the popular 1980s animated television series from Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Smurfs.
Clearly this will be a combination of CGI Smurfs with a live action world. Among the very few Human interactors Gargamel is clearly the most predominate (followed by the far less popular PeeWee and Johan)
Gargamel was always after the Smurfs for his dark magical arts. Seen as a crackpot and a failure by more predominate medieval wizards. Apparently, aside from being rather tasty, a Smurf is one of the critical components for the formula to transmute lead into gold. Thus Gargamel is on the constant quest to obtain these tiny blue monsters.
I haven’t heard much news about this lately aside from them still working on it. No casting news yet. But who should play Gargamel? Likely the only human in the film, or at least the one that has the most interaction with the little fellas, so for those of you old enough to remember Gargamel I posted some ideas on who I would like to see:
Rowan Atkinson
Better known as Mr Bean actually is a very capable comedic actor who even speaks. Just mostly in BBC productions (Watch Black Adder – seriously). He has a look that would suit Gargamel, but perhaps too comedic. I don’t know if he can pull off the dark evil of Gargamel. He can nail the underdog rejected wizard and certainly he could do curiously mischievious, but I couldn’t take him serious as evil.
Sasha Baron Cohen
He fits the tall slim figure of Gargamel, and the dark hair and heavy brow would make an easy transition to the character. Sasha has already proven to be able to take on different characterized personas so he could rock the house on this cartoon brought to life. He can even grab that evil that is not pure, but greasy uneasy slippery evil.
Danny Devito
Clearly a dead ringer in the face, but Gargamel has always been presented as a slender chap. Forgivable considering just how shifty and of questionable morals Devito can splash all over the screen. We have seen more than once, Devito in a role of a character on the bottom half of the morality barrel. He can be scary and evil without being disturbing. Easily a top contender for me. I can see him snacking on Smurfs.
Jeff Goldblum
This has always been my top pick for Gargamel. Add some bushy dark hair and bald out that dome and this guy just has everything Gargamel needs. He can play the crackpot, the quack among peers, that crazy uncle that people don’t take seriously. And he can be scary! But he has a tiny bit of a soft side we sometimes see of Gargamel when a smurf looks at him with those big puppydog eyes just before he is about to throw them into a boiling potion pot. He has a likeabilty (despite easily being dark and twisted) that will make you invest emotionally in this conflicted villian.
I would love to see Goldblum in this, but I would accept any of my other three picks as well.
If you have a serious consideration for the role, who would you like to see chasing smurfs and kicking poor Azreal?
