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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Take the Sex and the City movie, for example. Rehashing a series that had finished on TV less than five years previously seemed to hecklerspray as something of a cynical cash-in. And it worked. Did it ever work . So who can blame the struggling execs in tinseltown for turning to another much-loved TV property with a push at converting it for the big screen, even though the topsoil on its grave is still fresh?

Yes, friends, there are rumours they're re-doing Friends. But for now, even though everyone in the world seems to be harping on about it, these rumours are nothing but that. There may be hope yet.

When it comes to barely-even-dead TV shows heading to the big screen there are few occasions when it's a genuinely good idea. The Sex and the City film proved it was a lucrative idea, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good one. It does if you're a money-hoarding twit, mind, but if you have any integrity whatsoever it's probably better to leave these projects alone. Let them die, especially when they went on for ten years and tied up every loose end imaginable over the course.

Don't re-open the wounds, don't rehash the same storylines, don't break up the established relationships and don't create new problems from lives that fans of the show have accepted as being 'on course'. Oh, and retroactively: don't give Joey a spin-off. It won't work. hecklerspray feared the worst when rumours popped up earlier this week that all of those sins were about to be committed in one glorious two-hour epic of utterly unbelievable lives, 'being there for yoooou' and Phoebe being a shit character.

But thank crikey if there haven't been two massive wedges of sense in the space of a day – first the tabloid 'zines turn down messr Lohan's approaches to sell the story of the child that may not even be his, and now it would seem that the raping of an only very recently dead TV corpse is to be left alone. For the time being, at least. Matthew Perry – or Chandler, or that one off that cancelled TV show that was quite good, for those who don't know him outside of Friends (i.e. most people, thanks to his stellar movie career) – has a publicist, Lisa Kasteler, and she said these words using her mouth:

"Nothing is happening in this regard, so the rumour is false."

She couldn't have put it better if she tried. Well, she could – she could have swore or something, as we all know swearing is fucking cool. But for 'getting straight to the point' points, she scores high.

But this leaves something of a void in the minds of the Hollywood decision-makers. Well, we should say 'more of a void than the normal vacuous space that should resemble the creative part of a human brain in the minds of the Hollywood decision-makers'. Without a tried-and-tested formula, what can they do? Come up with something new? Do a sequel? Release the same rom-com again with a different title?

hecklerspray has a suggestion, one that we're willing to give up for free, just this once. It covers the TV-remake base and has genuine potential, as well as being a worthy transition from small to big screen, not just a bloated cash-in.

Arrested Development: The Movie.

Make that and most of your sins for being rubbish bastards will be forgiven.