An update on the new Muppet Movie
I’ve been waiting for a good Muppet movie for years, it seems. I hearken back to the days of The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, so while Muppet Babies and retelling A Christmas Carol with Muppets is nice and all, I just want me some good old-fashioned classic Muppet antics. So it was with great excitement that I read that the latest Muppet adventure is taking the franchise right back where I loved it. Think of Muppet Movie, Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan as the original Star Wars trilogy. Then someone came along and made a Star Wars Christmas Special and some made-for-TV Ewoks movies, but it just wasn’t the same.
Jason Segel and Nick Stoller, who brought us Forgetting Sarah Marshall, are spearheading this Muppet revival and have just turned in their first script. I like the idea of Segel and Stoller doing this movie because they’ve proven they can do edgy humor. I’m not saying The Muppets should be rated R, but PG or PG-13 even wouldn’t be bad for the franchise. The question is if Disney can allow the Muppets to stray from kids-only fare back to their days of being cutting edge and cool. Then put them back on TV in a weekly show like we’ve been teased about for years!
The new Muppet movie promises to be about the gang getting back together to put on a show and save the studio (hey, that sounds refreshingly familiar actually) and promises to feature all the Muppet heavy-hitters and cameos galore. I just picked up Season Three of the original series (I hope Muppets Tonight gets the DVD treatment eventually, too) and it’s just as goofy and entertaining now as it ever was. I can’t help but think that under the right guiding hands, The Muppet Show could be revived and as fun and relevant today as it ever was. Just think of all the awesome guests they could have, and the fun they could have ragging on reality television, celebrity antics, paparazzi craziness and the list goes on and on. Muppets Tonight was a pretty good ’90s revival, following largely the same format as the original, but it just didn’t seem quite as sharp or witty; Kermit has to be the center of it all for it to work.
Hopefully, this new movie can find an audience in today’s market and does the Muppets proper justice. So many people forget that those original movies, and even the television show, weren’t tailored exclusively for kids. For creator Jim Henson, he had Sesame Street for his kid-oriented material, and The Muppet Show for the rest. In fact, Kermit used to pull double-duty on both, and other Sesame Street characters made appearances on the Muppet shows and the movies. Unfortunately, the two franchises are under different ownership now, so it seems pretty unlikely we’ll see Big Bird trying to hitch a ride in the new movie.
I never really understood why Disney felt the need to take the Muppet franchise in the direction they did once they acquired the original rights to it. Disney has plenty of childrens’ properties, so why turn the Muppets into just another children’s franchise? The original charm of the Muppets was that they lived in “our” world, interacting with people and our environment. Muppets on the subway, or trying to flag a taxi is much funnier than Muppets on a pirate ship to me.
Offering only classic remakes and genre films featuring those characters takes away from what made them work in the first place. I’m not saying never do something like that, but for too many years those films and representations have been the only appearances the Muppets have been making. Kermit and Piggy and all the rest are great because of their established “real” personalities. And as they are all “actors,” they can take on these other roles seamlessly, or not so seamlessly to even more humorous results.
And then big screen success can lead to small screen revival. And if they’re ever looking for a snarky incredibly handsome television blogger to make a guest appearance on the show, I’m just a bicycle or balloon ride away.
Nicholas Stoller says Jason Segel will Star in the new Muppet Movie
Okay, so far we don’t know much about the new Muppet Movie that Jason Segel and Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller are developing, but Segel’s promises that it will be a call back to the old school Muppet films has us excited. Soller recently revealed a couple new details to the Defamer.
“It’s gonna be an old school Muppet movie like The Great Muppet Caper or Muppets Take Manhattan. Basically the Muppets have to put on a show to save their studio. And in the intervening years, there’s been a Muppet Diaspora, so the main Muppets need to go off with Jason [Segel] and collect other Muppets from all around the world. We’re in the middle of writing it now. We’re on page 50.”
This is interesting because in interviews Segal had been dodging questions on if he would star in the new movie, but Stoller clearly says otherwise.
Jason Segel Reveals Plot of The New Muppet Movie
When it was announced that Jason Segel and Nick Stoller had signed on to develop a new Muppet movie, I was really excited. Details were unavailable, all we had to go on was the promise that Segel wanted to return to the Muppet roots, a call back to the original Muppet films (”I’ve just grown a little disappointed with ‘Muppets in the Old West,’ ‘Muppets Under Water,’ and all these weird concept movies. I just want to go take it back to the early 80’”. My friend Devin at CHUD was able to squeeze out a few more plot details during the Forgetting Sarah Marshall Junket this weekend.
Apparently the original Muppet crew must gather together to put a show on to save an old theater. Possibly the original theater from The Muppet Show or maybe the Broadway Theater from The Muppets Take Manhattan? (probably less likely). Apparently an evil character wants to tear the place down to get to the oil underneath. Apparently said evil character has not seen There Will Be Blood, and doesn’t understand the concept of “DRAINAGE!!!!” Sounds like an interesting idea to me. At least it’s not going to be another lame classic story brought to life with Muppets.
Forgetting a New Muppets Movie
After seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall the other night at SXSW, it was no surprise to me that Disney had hired the star/writer Jason Segel and director Nick Stoller behind Judd Apatow’s latest to develop the next Muppet movie. Segel and Stoller will write the screenplay and Stoller will direct.
A major sequence in Sarah Marshall features a huge vampire love story stageplay acted out with puppets, which were created by the Henson puppeteers. Also at one point Segel’s character also sang/played The Muppet Show theme song on the piano. Segal pitched an idea for a new Muppet movie during a general meeting with executive Kristin Burr.
The early Muppet films were absolutely genius, but the last few failed due to an attempt to dumb down the plot/jokes to appeal to young viewers. I’m sure Segel and Stoller understand what direction to take the franchise, it’s just a question of if Henson/Disney will allow them the chance to actually make it happen.
Discuss: Could Segel and Stoller create another great Muppet movie, or is the Muppet franchise dead?
source: Variety