Raja Gosnell ("Beverly Hills Chihuahua," "Yours, Mine and Ours") will direct Sony's "Smurfs" which will be released in both 2-D and 3-D formats on December 17th next year.

Jordan Kerner ("Charlotte's Web") and J. David Stern and David N. Weiss ("Shrek 2," "Jimmy Neutron") wrote the screenplay based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon created in 1958 by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford (a.k.a. Peyo).

The characters then played in a popular animated TV series starting in 1981. The story followed little blue dwarflike creatures with varying personalities. Get tons of details on "Smurfs" at Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurfs.