a different colored dot and the actors had to remember which dot was which Smurf. The Smurfs characters were created during post-production by 268 Sony Pictures Imageworks employees who spent around 358,000 hours animating. Character designer Allen Battino, a long time Kerner collaborator, was brought in to redesign the characters for CGI. Release The film had its worldwide premiere on June 16, 2011, in Júzcar, a small village in Spain. To celebrate the release, the residents painted entire village, including church and other historical buildings in blue. Twelve local painters used 4,000 litres of blue to transform traditionally white Júzcar into the world's first Smurf Village. Although Sony vowed to restore the village to its former look, six months after the premiere, the residents voted to keep the colour, which had brought more than 80,000 tourists to Júzcar. In the United States, the film was meant to be released on December 17, 2010, but it was delayed to July 29, 2011. It was then further delayed to August 3, 2011, before being moved up to the original release date of July 29, 2011. Sony teamed up with marketing partners in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom to promote the film through McDonald's Happy Meals and Post Foods brand cereal during the summer of 2011. Home media The Smurfs was released on DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and Blu-ray 3D on , accompanied with an all-new 22-minute animated short film The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol. The Smurfs and Friends with Benefits are the first Sony films compatible with the UltraViolet system, which enables users to access films on any web-connected device. The film was re-released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 28, 2017. Reception Box office The Smurfs grossed $142.6 million in the United States and Canada, along with $421.1 million in foreign markets, for a worldwide total of $563.7 million. Documents from the Sony Pictures hack revealed the film turned a profit of $83 million. The film opened on approximately 5,300 screens at 3,395 locations, with 2,042 locations being 3D-enabled theaters. On July 28, 2011, Exhibitor Relations predicted The Smurfs would rank third its opening weekend with $24 million, but analyst Jeff Bock added that the film "could be a dark horse and do better than expected". That same day, John Young of Entertainment Weekly predicted a $32 million opening and a second-place ranking behind Cowboys & Aliens. He also