’Smurfs’ Just Overtook the Studio-Shattering Animated Bomb Directed by H.G. Wells’ Great Grandson at the Global Box Office

The struggling Paramount simply can’t catch a break. After the underperformance of its biggest release of the year, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, the studio debuted the children’s film Smurfs in theaters worldwide last week. The animated film had a poor opening, but is counting on overseas markets to make up for its underwhelming performance at the domestic box office. Poor reviews normally don’t matter for movies aimed at kids, but the Smurfs perhaps aren’t as popular now as Hollywood might have been led to believe a decade or so ago.

With just over $20 million domestically and another $24 million from overseas markets, Smurfs has now grossed a combined total of $47 million worldwide. The movie was produced on a reported budget of $60 million, which is roughly around the same amount that was spent on 2017’s Smurfs: The Lost Village. The movie made nearly $200 million worldwide, which sounds incredible, but is only a fraction of the $500 million-plus haul of 2011’s live-action/animated The Smurfs. Even The Smurfs 2, which debuted a couple of years later, grossed over $300 million worldwide.

Each film in the franchise, based on the comic book series by Belgian artist Peyo, has featured a popular pop star as the sole female character, Smurfette. The first couple of movies had Katy Perryon the call sheet; The Lost Village featured Demi Lovato in the role, while the new film features Rihannaas the character. It also features the voices of John Goodman, James Corden, and Nick Offerman. Directed by Chris Miller, the movie opened to poor reviews, and is currently sitting at a “rotten” 21% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.

'Mars Needs Moms' Lost Disney Over $100 Million

Smurfs has now overtaken the $40 million lifetime haul of Mars Needs Moms, the 2011 animated film produced by Robert Zemeckis and directed by Simon Wells, who happens to be the great-grandson of H.G. Wells. Mars Needs Moms remains one of the biggest bombs in Disney’s recent history, and it resulted in the closure of Zemeckis’ ImageMovers Digital studio and the laying-off of hundreds of employees. Overtaking Mars Needs Moms is dating with faint praise, but Smurfs needs to perform a lot better if it wants to be compared to bigger titles. You can watch the movie in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Smurfs

Release Date

July 18, 2025

Runtime

92 Minutes

Director

Chris Miller

Writers

Pam Brady, Peyo

Producers

Ryan Harris