Raja Gosnell will direct The Smurfs, a live-action/animation hybrid for Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation.
Now, this news broke yesterday, and we know that we should have reported it then. But frankly the idea of Gosnell, the director responsible for witless, lifeless horror shows like Home Alone 3, both Scooby-Doo movies and Beverly Hills frickin’ Chihuahua, calling the shots on a live-action/animated movie about a bunch of blue midgets with squeaky voices was so terrifying that we shut our eyes and hoped it would go away.
But when we opened them this morning, it was still there, and we realised with mounting terror that Gosnell is poised to strike again. There’s even a script in place, with Audrey Wells polishing the previous effort, by Davids Stem and Weiss, while Jordan Kerner will produce the movie.
"With Raja coming aboard, we now have a brilliant director who has proved time and again that he has a deft touch in blending the worlds of physical comedy and honest emotion with both live-action and photo-real animated characters," said Kerner, making us wonder if there’s another Raja Gosnell out there, directing movies that we don’t know about. Can’t be the same guy, surely? Has Kerner seen Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed?
We could go on. We could report that the film will be shot in 3D, with a release date of December 17, 2010. We could even tell you that the movie will feature all your favourite Smurfs characters, including the blue one and that other blue one. But frankly we’ve closed our eyes again and we’re not opening them until it’s safe.