It was directed by Matthew O'Callaghan (in his theatrical feature directorial debut), written by Ken Kaufman and produced by Ron Howard, David Kirschner, and Jon Shapiro.

Featuring the voices of Frank Welker, Will Ferrell, Drew Barrymore, David Cross, Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright, and Dick Van Dyke, it tells the story of how the Man with the Yellow Hat, a tour guide at a museum, first befriended a curious monkey named George and started going on adventures with him around the city while attempting to save the museum from closure.

To save his job and the museum, Ted impulsively volunteers to retrieve an ancient 40-foot-tall idol, the Lost Shrine of Zagawa, hoping that it will attract new visitors.

Ted is outfitted with a bright yellow suit and hat from a clothing store and boards a cargo ship to Africa, becoming humiliated in front of other passengers.

At the museum, Ted reveals the idol's actual size to Mr. Bloomsberry and is kicked out by Junior after the monkey accidentally destroys an Apatosaurus skeleton.

[14] Universal Pictures acquired the merchandising rights to Curious George from publisher Houghton Mifflin in September 1997, after Margret Rey's death the previous year.

[17] However, Guterman left the project reportedly after budget concerns about the film's special effects led Universal and Imagine to postpone production.

[7] According to Stacey Snider, then-chairman of Universal Pictures, it was challenging to turn the relatively simple Curious George books into a full-length film with substantial character development.

[7] During the film's production process, many screenwriters wrote potential scripts for the project, including Joe Stillman, Dan Gerson, Babaloo Mandel, Lowell Ganz, Mike Werb, Brian Levant, David Reynolds, and Audrey Wells.

[9][7][19][25] Kirschner said that screenwriter Pat Proft wrote a live action draft of the film that contained a lot of "funny stuff", but was also focusing on the relationship between The Man with the Yellow Hat and George the monkey, which was "really difficult to capture the innocence of that".

They expanded the role of The Man in the Yellow Hat and gave him a name, making the script more like a buddy film rather than one that was focused primarily on George.

[7] The success of Shrek in 2001 led Imagine co-chairman Brian Grazer to shift the film towards all-CG, saying at the time that George would be easy to convey in CGI animation rather than in a live-action mix.

[9][28] According to executive producer Ken Tsumura, CGI animation was used to create the environments for 20 percent of the film, including the city scenes, in order to allow objects to move in 3D space.

The proportions of George and Ted were kept consistent with the books' illustrations, but their character designs were updated to accommodate the big screen, with O'Callaghan noting that they gave them eyes, pupils, teeth, etc.

[34] Describing the songwriting process, Johnson recalled: "The balance was writing lyrics that didn't match things too perfectly, but would kind of reference what was going on in the film.

[43] In The New York Times, Dana Stevens called the film "an unexpected delight", praising its "top-drawer voice talent" and "old-fashioned two-dimensional animation that echoes the simple colors and shapes of the books".

[46] The Austin Chronicle's Marrit Ingman wrote positively of the film's "sweet, simple message" that "children see the world differently and have much to teach the people who love them".

[47] Christy Lemire of the Associated Press praised George's character design, writing that "with his big eyes and bright smile and perpetually sunny disposition, he's pretty much impossible to resist".

[48] Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, noting that it remained "faithful to the spirit and innocence of the books" and writing that the visual style was "uncluttered, charming, and not so realistic that it undermines the fantasies on the screen".

[49] Richard Roeper, Ebert's co-host, criticized the film for similar reasons and said that he could not "tell people my age, or someone twenty-five [years old], that they should spend nine or ten bucks to see this movie".

[43] Brian Lowry of Variety felt that the plot was too simplistic, writing that the film consisted primarily of "various chases through the city" and was "rudimentary on every level".

A third sequel, Curious George: Royal Monkey, serving as the fourth film of the series, which is flash-animated instead of traditionally animated was released on DVD on September 10, 2019.

A fourth sequel titled Curious George: Go West, Go Wild premiered on September 8, 2020 on Peacock,[55] and was also released on DVD and digital on December 15.

[56] A fifth sequel, Curious George: Cape Ahoy, serving as the sixth and final film of the series, was released on Peacock on September 30, 2021.