Disney Enlists Segel & Stoller for new Muppets movie

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MrsPepper

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Thank you frogboy - "dysfunctional" - I couldn't have said it better.

Check it out - TMZ just launched Hollywood Muppets:

http://photos.tmz.com/galleries/hollywood_muppets
HAHA! Oh, man, I can't believe they did that. That's brilliant. I just posted a comment. I am a huge TMZ fan and check the site pretty much every day, but I hadn't seen it yet today!

I agree with beaker about the whole TMZ thing (which he said before the above TMZ article was even posted!). I'd rather not see Piggy as a loser, just my preference, but at least make it kinda dishy and get the paps involved, that could be funny. TMZ has a great sense of humour; they even had Lindsay Lohan on their show the other day, pretending to work there and commenting on the photos the paps took of her!
 

Beauregard

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I just wanna backtrack a teeny bit to the comments about Piggy chooseing her work over Kermit in The Muppet Movie. Yes, she did. There's no denying that she took that call, and ran out on him.

She had known him then for less than a day.

Take The Muppets Take Manhatten into the question, and she decided to stay in Broadway, broke, selling cheap makeup just to stay be her frog.

Sheesh...
 

uppitymuppity

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Oh god - Beau you are failing to realize that it was a joke... Simple as that. Something unexpected. That's the thing with screenwriting if you notice when watching a "good" film - the writers are trying to put a spin on what is obvious so you will be surprised.
 

Speed Tracer

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I like the oil idea. Although, not sure how it feels compared to the frog legs plot, which hit the Muppets close to home. This is more on a global scale, I guess.
 

theprawncracker

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HAHAHA! Those TMZ comparisons were absolutely HILLARIOUS! I laughed super hard! So funny! I especially liked Jack Black and Fozzie, and Sam and that guy from Everybody Loves Raymond. :stick_out_tongue:
 

dwayne1115

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The plot seems to be going a long with the script that Jim Henson and Jerry Juil where working on called "The Cheapest Muppet Movie ever Made". I read about it on an interview with Frank Oz, and from what I remeber from the interview it sounds a lot like the new plot.

I think it would be interesting to see where the Muppets would go. I can see Kermit and Robin going back to the swamp. I also see Gonzo doing stunts with someone like Johnny Knoxville or Bam Margera. Piggy would be working a lot she would have her own design of close and makeup. Something like Pigware or something like that.
 

beaker

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I'm liking you more and more beaker. There seems to be this purist camp of muppet fans who think that everything was entirely sweetness and light with the muppets. What i've found and find most appealing about Jim Henson's work is that there is an amazing balance he struck with everything. There is darkness to the muppets - not that they are evil - but, just like real life the characters are not entirely one thing or the other. I truly think that perspective is what we've been missing since Henson's death - he had an amazing psychology that he breathed into those dolls. I hope these writers can touch on that and not make them one dimensional.
Oh absolutely. While I don't really feel Muppet Wizard of Oz felt authentically "Muppety", the breadth of JH's work was as complex as the soul. While there was the obvious crass adult R-rated
Muppet times(Land of Gorch, continuing on now with Puppet Up and the HA! brand which I enjoy), you also had the Joan Ganz Cooney era which took the Muppets out of whitebread Jimmy Stewart world and into the inner city. A world that wasn't always pretty, but nonetheless had it's own charm. Now, in 2008..we see how this era has to come with a "warning", because children living in impoverished areas and playing with garbage may be shocking

We had Fraggle Rock, a bit of a nod to new age beliefs, and old world Celtic like threads of community, music and laughter. A show that unfortunately only aired on HBO in America, yet nonetheless continued the Muppet evolution. If Sesame Street had felt like the inner cities, and the Muppet show had turned the vaudeville variety format on its head...then the "Rock" brough a timeless global feel of magic and music in a way that felt ethereal and inspired. It's message is in a way "too much" for today's Barney weened kids. Too gentle, sweet, yet deep.

From Time Piece to the idea of "The Cube" and even an art deco avant garde night club, Jim Henson was always pushing the boundaries of zany creativity....pushing himself past mere puppets in front of a camera. His human less quasi-gnostic Dark Crystal ushered in a whole new artistry to puppetry that has yet to be surpassed in my opinion.

But ultimately, it does come back down to Kermit and the gang.
The Muppets work back when they can transcent the medium, and reside on completely divergent layers. Looking back at the original 1969 episodes of Sesame Street, we see Gordon talking with anything whatnot muppets about some rather frank complex social issues of the time. Kids didn't get it, I'm sure...but you look at the Muppet Show, the Muppet movie, etc. and there's the sweetness, but also the ability to feel "adult" without the usual interpretation of "Adult". The Muppet Movie is a work of genuis, because it feels like a timeless journey that just *happens* to star puppets. The Muppets Take Manhattan has a scene at the beginning, where Kermit, Floyd, Janice, etc are walking around downtown New York City. And it just feels important and alive.

I want to see the Muppets capture that feel again. That feel that transcends mere "nostalgia"...because you're then not looking at nostalgia being rehashed, but a constant. We don't think of Saturday Night Live as "that 70's" or "80's" show. The Muppets have been around 53 years. When the next movie comes to theatres, the Muppets and Kermit will have been here 55 years

We live in a crazy, crazy world. But as long as Jim Henson's vision keeps going...as long as we have The Muppets in one form or another, some may say it's a reason for hope. When we see the documentary "The World According to Sesame Street", and the Ganz Cooney legacy of bringing the SS Muppets to all corners of the world...no matter if bombings and mortar shells, and pure hate is erupting, it shows how important the Muppet message of peace and understanding, sillyness and song abounds.

I was writing a script for a new muppet film in 2001, just a kind of fan exercise. It started off with Pepe, Bunsen, Beaker, Neuter, Sal, Scooter, penguins, etc working for a dot com company in a big city...kind of what Google would be now. All kinds of hilarity and chaos, and flying things would abound with an opening zany original music number.

In this treatment, there was to be a powerful corporation in a tall highrise. The top floors would be dark, overgrown with swampy growth...with Dark Crystal like creatures acting as minions to a powerful CEO type(like say, Christopher Walken) This CEO was threatening to not just take over the wherehouse where many Muppets were employed, but like in Roger Rabbit...try to wipe out the Muppets. (also ala 101 Dalmations)

It would be up to Kermit to literally go the world over to find every Muppet to come back to San Francisco or New York or wherever this took place. Kermit would have to walk the deserts of the middle east and Africa to find...say Gonzo on his newfound spiritual question. Or Fozzie doing jokes for tourists in Thailand.
Miss Piggy doing commercials in Japan for products.

This was my script idea, and I'm hoping just a little of that idea, out there in the ether, can make it's way to the Stoller/Segal project.

Thanks for the kind compliments! The idea of a NEW Muppet film, NEW Dark Crystal film, and a Fraggle Rock film is very quite exciting
 

Beauregard

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Oh god - Beau you are failing to realize that it was a joke... Simple as that. Something unexpected. That's the thing with screenwriting if you notice when watching a "good" film - the writers are trying to put a spin on what is obvious so you will be surprised.
Hmm...Perhaps Beaker should start talking for this movie...Now that would be unexpected!

Possibly not! It's about the unexpected, yes, but also about remaining with what is true to that character. It wouldn't be funny for Gonzo to give up his dare-devilry, unless he had a reason to, such as accidently injuring a co-worker one time, and ultimatly he'd be hurting wanting to return to his dare-devilry.

It wouldn't be funny for Statler and Waldorf to looove Fozzie's jokes, and to actually belly-laugh at his puns, or to hug him after the show and say, Congratulations, you did great. Because it's not true to them. Its funny when they accidently trick themselves into liking something. "It was awful." "It was bad." "Well, it wasn't terrible. ""It was good." "It was great!" "WE LOVED IT!" Because that stayed true.

It really wasn't funny for Sam the Eagle to start dancing on the beach in Muppets From Space. Sure there was one heck of a sexy girl dancing next to him with her belly-button out and a beady necklace, but that would (should?) have repulsed him and made him burry his head in his hands (maybe take a peek through his feathers...) Because that would be true to him. When Piggy froze on camera, also on MFS, that wasn't funny because Piggy has been a glamour girl all her life, check out Muppet Family Christmas. She adores the camera, bathes in it. (Admittedly there may be more backstory to why she was working as a coffee pig and why she froze, but I don't have time for that now.)

Miss Piggy cannot go into rehab, because it is not true to her. The truth of her is that she "certainly seems to know where she's going." She sets her eyes on something and she wants it, be it fame, fortune, or frog (nice alliteration, eh?). She doesn't give up. Even when Kermit fired her, she pretended she'd quit to keep her dignaty intact.

I'm not being gripey or pernickity, but if the writer's decided to put Miss Piggy in rehab as 'a joke...' something as simple as that. 'Unexpected.' Something that I'm obviously not 'good' enough to notice when I'm watching films, in order to put a 'spin' on things...it would not be a good spinny joke, or a surprise, it would be wrong.

If they made a Simpsons movie (and this isn't the best example, because their cannon is a lot more flexable) and Marge was repulsed by Homer's drinking, rather than loving him a heck of a lot, it would be wrong. If they made a Bear in the Big Blue House movie where Bear didn't believe that heavenly orbs could speak, that would be wrong.

If they abandon character in favour of a laugh, it can be seen through, and isn't funny.
 

uppitymuppity

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Well Beau, you've just got it all worked out there then... It's true about staying true to the character but, how boring would the world of entertainment be if all characters just fit nicely in a specific box and did the same old things over and over and over again?

Beau - I want you to get up from that desk & computer and go over and open a window - take a deep breath and say this ten times "creative possibilities".
 
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