Be honest – when you heard that The Smurfs was going to be remade into a movie, a tiny part of you died.

Well, there was no need. Further details about the Smurfs movie have emerged, and it looks like it’ll be a masterpiece. The Smurfs will take the gritty realism of The Dark Knight and pair it with the knowing pizazz of Iron Man, while painstakingly staying true to the Smurf canon to keep the purists sated.

What makes us so certain? Simple, because the director of Beverly Hills Chihuahua is directing The Smurfs movie. Beverly Hills Chihuahua! Squeeee!

We want you to do something for us. We want you to make a list of all of your favourite films. Done it? Good. Now, unless you’re a total bellend who hates life, that list will definitely include Big Momma’s House. Right? And Scooby-Doo. And Home Alone 3. And Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. And Never Been Kissed. And Beverly Hills Chihuahua. OF COURSE Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

And what do all of these epic, masterful, emotion-packed blockbusters have in common? Raja Gosnell, that’s what. He directed all of those movies. There’s probably a giant commemorative statue of him somewhere saluting his work. And if there isn’t, there deserves to be. If you want a movie starring a talking dog, a second-rate Macaulay Culkin rip-off, or an unfunny black comedian dressed up as an elderly obese woman, Raja Gosnell is your man.

And so it fills us with absolute relief to be able to announce that Raja Gosnell is going to the man who’ll helm the forthcoming movie adaptation of The Smurfs. Only a man with Raja Gosnell’s dedication, critical adoration and, yes, godlike ability to weave magic out of celluloid would have been able to steer this Smurfy ship away from disaster. Reuters reports:

Raja Gosnell has signed on to direct “Smurfs,” a live action/animated movie starring the popular small blue characters created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo. The plot of “Smurfs” is being kept under wraps, but the story is expected to feature well-loved characters such as Papa Smurf, Smurfette and the villainous Gargamel. The film will be released in 3-D and 2-D formats on December 17, 2010.

But wait, Raja Gosnell is only the icing on a monstrous cake of blazing talent here. The script for The Smurfs is being written by J. David Stem, David N. Weiss and Audrey Wells, the powerhouse scribes behind that George Of The Jungle film you forgot existed and the two least-good Shrek movies. Better yet, The Smurfs is being produced by record-breaking Charlotte’s Web producer Jordan Kerner. Now, true, the record that Charlotte’s Web broke was for the most disappointing movie adaptation of a book you loved as a child, but a record’s a record. The Smurfs movie is going to RULE!

Now all that’s left to do is wait to hear which live-action stars will sign up to play alongside the photo-realistic, cutting-edge animated Smurfs in the movie. Please please PLEASE let one of them be Jennifer Love Hewitt! She’s exactly the sort of highbrow, artistically magnificent thespian that the Smurfs movie demands!

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This weekend saw the release of Body Of Lies; a taut, relevant thriller starring two of the world’s biggest actors helmed by one of its biggest directors.

And that’s why Body Of Lies is the number one movie at the weekend box office this week. Oh, actually, wait, no - Body Of Lies isn’t the number one movie at the weekend box office this week. The number one movie at the US box office is actually Beverly Hills Chihuahua, a film about a chihuahua. In Beverly Hills. That stars some dogs.

But just because it was beaten to the number one weekend box office spot by Beverly Hills Chihuahua, it doesn’t spell total humiliation for Body Of Lies. After all, it wasn’t like it was beaten down to third place in the box office by a ropey horror movie that’s only been released now because it’s not good enough for the Halloween market. Oh, actually, wait, no…

You might have underestimated the weekend box office might of Beverly Hills Chihuahua when you first heard about it, and we understand – we did exactly the same – but now it’s time for you to grovellingly repent.

After entering the weekend box office at number one last week, Beverly Hills Chihuahua has now taken up home there, beating off Body Of Lies – a Ridley Scott movie starring Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio – by over $4 million. And just because a film about a funny dog has out-grossed a political thriller about modern day counter-terrorism, it doesn’t mean that movie audiences are dumb. It just means that everyone else is as repulsed by Leonardo DiCaprio’s funny little beard as you are. Here’s the weekend box office top five…

1 - Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Now that it’s a genuine success story, we can all look forward to Beverly Hills Chihuahua‘s inevitable sequel, where the chihuahua accidentally boards a flight to Korea and ends up as a delicious, if somewhat less than filling soup) $17,511,000

2 - Quarantine (Having no idea what Quarantine is about, we decided to check out the trailer. Yeah, it’s basically The Blair Witch Project, but starring an old lady dancing about in a 50p zombie mask. Still, better than Body Of Lies, eh?) $14,200,000

3 - Body Of Lies (Given that Ridley Scott films starring Russell Crowe work on a cycle of one good, one bad – and Body Of Lies‘ woeful under-performance at the weekend puts it in the ‘bad’ camp, then we can safely assume that Nottingham is going to be really quite excellent. And also, Jay-Z‘s going to sample the shit out of it in a few years) $13,120,000

4 - Eagle Eye (Wonderful, another chance to reflect on Eagle Eye and its adorable star Shia LaBeouf. Excuse us while we do exactly that…. oh yeah, that hit the spot) $11,015,000

5 - Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist (We’re not going to talk about this movie – instead we’re going to look at City Of Ember, the new Bill Murray movie that only crawled into the weekend box office at an embarrassingly low tenth place. It’s a shame, but perhaps nobody could really accept the idea of an underground community where Bill Murray was mayor. If only the producers had thought to make the mayor a wisecracking miniature dog instead. Seriously, there’s money in that stuff) $6,500,000

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Weekend Box Office - Box Office Mojo

It’s such a stroke of genius that we’re astonished nobody had thought of it first – putting everyone’s favourite two loves of Beverly Hills and a chihuahua together in a movie.

Because the result is the complex, morally ambiguous rites of passage epic Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and it’s just become the number one movie at the weekend box office.

No wonder the weekend box office loves Beverly Hills Chihuahua – if anyone who’s seen the movie didn’t start to choke up at the moment when the Beverly Hills Chihuahua sits in a little chair wearing sunglasses and listening to Right Said Fred, well, we’re just not even sure that they’re human.

Hey kids, want to get rich quick? Then why not follow the hot moviemaking trend of 2008 – pitching films based solely on the fact that the title is made up of a thing and an animal. It’s simple. Kung Fu Panda did it, and that made a crapload of money. And now Beverly Hills Chihuahua has followed the exact same formula and got to the top of the US weekend box office.

So, Hollywood executives, if you’re reading, here are the names of your next five big family hits: Carwash Bloodhound, Pub Mongoose, Croydon Giraffe, Tax Inspector Snow Leopard and Horseradish Kestrel. You may bill us for these ideas accordingly. Here’s this week’s weekend box office top five…

1 - Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Don’t get cocky, Beverly Hills Chihuahua – the other TV and movie dogs could still beat you up pretty badly. Lassie‘s got a swift left paw, Rin Tin Tin a ferocious bite – and you know why The Littlest Hobo never settles down? He’s on the run for aggravated rape. Be careful, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, that’s all we’re saying) $29,000,000

2 – Eagle Eye (No no no Eagle Eye, you got it all wrong. It’s the name of a thing then the name of an animal, not the name of an animal then the name of a thing. Honestly, if you’d got it right and called yourself Eye Eagle, you’d still be number one at the weekend box office this week. Idiot) $17,700,000

3 – Nick And Nora’s Infinite Playlist (Hey, it’s a Michael Cera movie! Wonder what it’s about? Oh, Michael Cera being the exact same person he’s ever played in anything ever? Yay!) $12,000,000

4 – Nights In Rodanthe (The producers of this senior romance movie might not have known it, but the word ‘Rodanthe’ literally translates into ‘a stinking cess-poll of death’ in 25 different languages. Good lucking marketing that in Malaysia, producers!) $7,355,000

5 - Appaloosa (An anagram of Appaloosa is Alas, A Poop. We hope this more than makes up for the fact we have no idea what Appaloosa is about) $5,015,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo