Scooby Doo director to helm new Smurf movie

It’s been rumored for months that Hollywood’s fresh out of ideas, and here at last is the proof — They’re making a movie  starring that vast, swirling void of irrepressible cheerfulness  commonly known as the Smurfs.

Raja Gosnell, who helmed both the Scooby Doo movies, and last year’s Drew Barrymore comedy, ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua,’ has just signed on to direct for Columbia Pictures, and the script is coming from J. David Stem and David Weiss, who wrote Shreks 2 and 3.

Jordan Kerner, the movie’s producer, who has been working on this for the past seven years, told HR reporters, “With Raja coming aboard, we now have a brilliant director who has proven he has a deft touch, and we feel positively Smurfy to be working with him.”

For those too young to remember this peculiar virus, the Smurfs were created in 1958 by a Belgian cartoonist known simply as ‘Peyo,’ They first hit fame in 1981 when Hanna Barbera created no less than 256 cartoons of the little blue guys, that were shown in this country by NBC.

With their high, squeaky voices and floppy white hats, stars such as Papa Smurf, Smurfette and the evil Gargamel soon had half the world transfixed in their spell, and despite their rather saccharin appeal the blue Belgian blobs have sold over 10-million albums in the last three years.

And when this new film is released — in 2D and 3D — on December 17 of next year, you’ll all get the chance to guess why.

Source: Reporter