It seems Rihanna isn’t going to let one leaky blockbuster sink her fledgling acting career. Today comes word that the pop singer will join with Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) to star in DreamWorks Animation’s Happy Smekday!. It’s an adaptation of Adam Rex’s children book The True Meaning of Smekday, which finds a group of aliens invading earth on Christmas Eve (renaming the holiday “Smekday”) after being booted from their own planet by a villainous race called the Gorg. The story takes the form of an essay written by main character Tip, an 11-year-old human who travels cross-country with the alien that inadvertently put Earth on the Gorg’s radar. It will be helmed by Antz co-director Tim Johnson. Hit the jump for more.

DreamWorks Animation plans to release its CG/hand-drawn hybrid Me and My Shadow in March 2013.  According to Variety, the film is about “Shadow Stan, an incredibly frustrated shadow that yearns for a more dynamic life but happens to be stuck with Stanley Grubb, the world’s most boring human.  Eventually pushed to the brink, Shadow Stan breaks the singular rule of the Shadow World — “they lead, we follow” — and takes control of Stanley.”  Steve Bencich and Ron Friedman wrote the original screenplay, which is being revised by Tom Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart).  The film is being directed by Mark Dindal (The Emperor’s New Groove).  Hit the jump for more details on this project.