Steve Whitmire has left the Muppets, Matt Vogel to continue as Kermit

[Oscarfan]

I mean, just contrast the Muppets with Marvel; they know what they're going to be making a decade from now. We barely know when "Muppets Now" is gonna drop. I'm not gonna say Disney isn't doing anything since the ABC series fumbled, because we've gotten some good stuff since (mainly live appearances). But there doesn't seem to be a clear vision as to what they should be doing.

 

[D'Snowth]

The Muppets, in Jim's day, were always a collaborative effort, and he always encouraged input within his organization, as well as allowing his colleagues to discover things within their characters in their own way - this is how many of the Muppet character we know them as today were born, whether it was Caroll believing Big Bird should be a big kid, Frank believing Miss Piggy is a truck driver who wants to be a woman, Steve taking a generic rat Muppet and creating Rizzo out of it - this is part of what the Muppets so unique.

None of this is really happening with Disney; it's something Frank has been discussing on social media for quite a while, and, according to Steve's own claims, something he was fighting for, but Disney would not listen to reason. Even David Gallo has said of his experiences with working for Disney is that the company has an iron grip on their characters and properties, and how they're used within their works; so it further adds to the notion that Disney is afraid of allowing any kind of "outside influence" so-to-speak, when it comes to how anything with the Muppets is executed . . . in hindsight, I'm really surprised they eventually caved in and agreed to Jason Segel's screenplay at all.

 

[Bear Man]

To be fair, I think that the Marvel audience has a lot more options than what Disney are seeing with the Muppets. I thought the ABC series continued the tone of the teaser that was shown; the series was poorly received yet that teaser was a success. It’s almost as if any Muppets project that has been a success in the recent past (I’m talking about financial success, critical and fanbase reception; so some of the earlier YouTube clips, the 2011 film, and - to a certain extent - the series teaser) has required there to be simultaneous novelty and sameness; the Muppets hadn’t been seen in that medium for a while and their reappearance generated interest (allowing for a new audience to be tapped, thus financial success), while also allowing the same tone, same messages, same approach to be used again. I mean, I enjoyed the 2011 film but let’s be honest, there was absolutely nothing new in it: the Muppets are friends and need to put on a show. The problem is as soon as they generate renewed interest from exposure, the existing fanbase and some of the previous creative talent stamps their feet and says “everything must be as it was when Jim was around” which doesn’t allow any further development. No further development means the new audience loses interest and moves on. I think that the Muppets Now approach is probably one of the only ones left for the characters - allow for the characters to be utilised but require - in fact, impose - no narrative development

 

[BlakeConor14]

The reason marvel is so strong in terms of exposure is because it has been hit after hit for 11 years and not one of their films has been a huge bomb in box office or critical performance so why aren’t Disney gonna back it?

the muppets haven’t had that. They had the huge hit that was the 2011 film that really brought them back into the light
They gave them a sequel, while a much better muppet film and one of my favourites, it didn’t make as much money and wasn’t as well received as it’s predecessor.
The 2015 was a disaster in terms of ratings and reviews

Disney has given the muppets chances and for whatever reasons they haven’t taken them so Disney have decided to focus on other things

For muppet fans it’s sad
From a business standpoint it makes a lot of sense

 

[MWoO]

To be honest, The Muppets 2011 wasn't really a huge hit. It was a modest success compared to what Disney does. It had a budget of 45 mil and made 165 world wide. Compare that to say, toy story, which had a 30 mil budget and did 375mil world wide, and this was in 1995. In recent years, even that Christopher Robin movie did 195 mil world wide on a budget of 75 mil and I don't think anyone is calling that a hit.

The Muppets 2011 is considered a hit because no one expected it to do well and it did fairly ok. The mistake was doing a "sequel". They tried to have their cake and eat it too. They did a semi-sequel. The movie MMW didn't have much to do with the 2011 movie outside of a few references. It was a totally different kind of movie, as it should have been. However, it tried to just be a good muppet movie without tugging at all the nostalgia strings that the 2011 movie did. It had 5 mil more in budget but did half the earnings world wide.

There are several reasons why the second movie didn't do well. Some of it the fault of the movie, some the fault of how and when it got released. They couldn't even settle on a name until after they recorded the opening number, which is now really odd when watching the movie. But I think the most obvious thing is people love the Muppets when they miss them. They don't love them when they have regular access to them. Also, it seems like almost every fandom doesn't want anything new. They just want to see the old stuff redone. They claim to want new things, and then new things are done and the fandoms complain.

 

[LittleJerry92]

I mean, speaking for myself, I personally liked the 2015 series even if it may have shown some hints of being unprepared. I really wish it had gotten a second season. But alas, that never happened.

 

[D'Snowth]

The Muppets 2011 is considered a hit because no one expected it to do well and it did fairly ok. The mistake was doing a "sequel". They tried to have their cake and eat it too. They did a semi-sequel. The movie MMW didn't have much to do with the 2011 movie outside of a few references. It was a totally different kind of movie, as it should have been.

Exactly. With Sequelitis being such a problem in modern cinema, playing up the sequel angle for MMW was a big mistake - especially considering no one Muppet movie has ever been a direct sequel to another in the past; they've all been stand-alone features, as they should be.

 

[BlakeConor14]

But I think the most obvious thing is people love the Muppets when they miss them. They don't love them when they have regular access to them. They just want to see the old stuff redone.

You’ve got it spot on, general audiences want The Muppet Show and when they don’t get the muppet show they aren’t interested. That’s why Muppets Tonight and The Muppets failed because general audiences weren’t interested in seeing the muppets do something different

and that’s where we (the muppet fans) will suffer. Because if the general consumer isn’t watching and aren’t interested, shows will be cancelled and films will be stopped and Disney will syndicate stuff the public will watch like Marvel and Star Wars

Box Office Performance definitely pushed the muppets out as well.The three Marvel films (Captain Marvel,Endgame and Spider-Man) grossed over a billion this year, so did the lion king and the other live action remakes. Toy Story and Frozen did the same

would the muppets pull them figures?...

no

 

[Grumpo]

Pulled the box office data -- indeed, all along, Muppet movie becomes a really big hit only when general public considers it a "novelty" (as in new, or taking visuals to the new level, or something long forgotten). As I understand anything with Box Office / Budget ratio less than 2 is considered a flop, because of extra advertisement expenses and theater cuts. So run-of-the-mill "another muppet movie this year" is never a big hit.

Movie	Budget	Box Office	Ratio	Rank
The Muppet Movie (1979)	8 M​	76.7 M​	9.6​	1​
The Great Muppet Caper (1981)	14 M​	31.2 M​	2.2​	5​
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)	8 M​	25.5 M​	3.2​	3​
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)	12 M​	27.7 M​	2.3​	4​
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)	31 M​	34.3 M​	1.1​	7​
Muppets From Space (1999)	24 M​	16.3 M​	0.7​	8​
The Muppets (2011)	45 M​	161.0 M​	3.6​	2​
Muppets Most Wanted (2014)	55 M​	79.3 M​	1.4​	6​

Indeed, in this era of a big screen / small screen struggle, most people come to the movie theater mostly for eye candy, to see something exploding that they never saw exploding before, for mindblowing CGI, or for painstaking era reconstruction. I've read somewhere that even the big star names do not guarantee box office numbers anymore, the only exception being, somehow, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.

What Muppets always excelled in was, instead, a character comedy sketch, that is mostly associated with recurring TV appearances -- which is, indeed, what Muppets were for the most of their history. 2015 series flopped mostly because it was tone deaf -- you cannot have a character comedy with characters twisted out of character.

I have a feeling that if returning to Jimmy Dean format, where short sketches written by Muppet writers (unlike SNL) would appear between this and that as a part of some bigger small-screen programme was possible, it would catch on with public immediately.

Just one of the possible opinions... =)

 

[BlakeConor14]

Movie	Budget	Box Office	Ratio	Rank
The Muppet Movie (1979)	8 M​	76.7 M​	9.6​	1​
The Great Muppet Caper (1981)	14 M​	31.2 M​	2.2​	5​
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)	8 M​	25.5 M​	3.2​	3​
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)	12 M​	27.7 M​	2.3​	4​
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)	31 M​	34.3 M​	1.1​	7​
Muppets From Space (1999)	24 M​	16.3 M​	0.7​	8​
The Muppets (2011)	45 M​	161.0 M​	3.6​	2​
Muppets Most Wanted (2014)	55 M​	79.3 M​	1.4​	6​

8 muppet films box office total- $452 million dollars



Last 8 Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies Box Office Performance:
Spider-Man Homecoming- $880 million
Thor Ragnarok- $853 million
Black Panther- $1.3 Billion
Avengers: Infinity War - $2 Billion
Ant-Man And The Wasp- $623 Million
Captain Marvel- $1.1 Billion
Avengers: Endgame- $2.79 Billion
Spider-Man Far From Home- $1.1 Billion



That is only 8/23 MCU movies and the worst performing one made more than all eight of the muppet movies


What would you be backing if you were a Disney exec? I know which one I’d be