We Need Another Movie

[Drtooth]

[slams hand down on table]

THAT'S IT! I just realized what Disney should do with the Muppets.

I flipped through the channels and found a Cars short cartoon on Disney channel inbetween two of their shows. They also have those Mickey Mouse shorts, as well as a pre-show series of Star Wars Rebel shorts on XD, while Gravity Falls shorts filled the gap in between the year long wait between seasons.

Soooo.... what would be a logical next step would be a series of 5 minute or less Muppet Show style shorts featuring Muppet characters to put in-between shows. They have a place for them on television, and they tend to post those online as well. If a full format TV series won't work, his is the next best thing.

 

[sesamemuppetfan]

If a full format TV series won't work, his is the next best thing.

Absolutely!

 

[DannyRWW]

[slams hand down on table]

THAT'S IT! I just realized what Disney should do with the Muppets.

I flipped through the channels and found a Cars short cartoon on Disney channel inbetween two of their shows. They also have those Mickey Mouse shorts, as well as a pre-show series of Star Wars Rebel shorts on XD, while Gravity Falls shorts filled the gap in between the year long wait between seasons.

Soooo.... what would be a logical next step would be a series of 5 minute or less Muppet Show style shorts featuring Muppet characters to put in-between shows. They have a place for them on television, and they tend to post those online as well. If a full format TV series won't work, his is the next best thing.

I honestly thought that was what we would get with the Muppesode thing they did with the food trucks.

 

[mimitchi33]

[slams hand down on table]

THAT'S IT! I just realized what Disney should do with the Muppets.

I flipped through the channels and found a Cars short cartoon on Disney channel inbetween two of their shows. They also have those Mickey Mouse shorts, as well as a pre-show series of Star Wars Rebel shorts on XD, while Gravity Falls shorts filled the gap in between the year long wait between seasons.

Soooo.... what would be a logical next step would be a series of 5 minute or less Muppet Show style shorts featuring Muppet characters to put in-between shows. They have a place for them on television, and they tend to post those online as well. If a full format TV series won't work, this is the next best thing.

Maybe they should put the Muppisodes on first, and if those work, make an actual series. They could air on Disney Junior like Cars Toons and replace that god-awful Nina Needs to Go! show. (And if you don't know what that is, be glad).

I honestly thought that was what we would get with the Muppisode thing they did with the food trucks.

That was funny! I saw the short at a Disney Store in Lancaster and couldn't stop laughing at the beginning!

I think the next Muppet movie, if we do get one, should be "The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made". Who's with me?

 

[Muppet Master]

Maybe they should put the Muppisodes on first, and if those work, make an actual series. They could air on Disney Junior like Cars Toons and replace that god-awful Nina Needs to Go! show. (And if you don't know what that is, be glad).


That was funny! I saw the short at a Disney Store in Lancaster and couldn't stop laughing at the beginning!

I think the next Muppet movie, if we do get one, should be "The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made". Who's with me?

Why should they put muppets on Disney Junior when all his life Jim wanted the muppets to be more for adults and a family audience, so that would be a disgrace to him. Besides, they would probably air Disney Drive-On which already has six episodes, muppisodes only has one episode.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

Disney Junior? You have got to be kidding me right? It's bad enough there's this stigma today that, the Muppets are only for kids. Again do I have to post that interview where Kermit says they don't try to do what they do for kids?!

 

[SpookyMania]

^Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing that.

 

[Muppet Master]

Let us just stick to a web series. We all know the muppets just can not fare well in today's prime time atmosphere and neither could they twenty years ago, and who is to blame them, no show really lasts on TV anymore, there are tons of shows canceled compared to the ones renewed. If you do not get good ratings or develop your show in the first two episodes than into the cancellation bear's mouth you go. Who knows how many shows could have found an audience and become a cult classic if it had just lasted one more season, well we will never know. This is why the muppets belong on the internet, because you simply can not get cancelled, there is no way, you can make 1,000 episodes of a web series without worrying about getting the can. The internet is like what television used to be when a show could develop, so I strongly think that the muppets need some sort of web series, and with that said I think TMS reruns on some non-cable channel would be something to consider so the muppets can find an audience.

 

[dwmckim]

The Muppets basically have the same problem they've had for the past couple decades - they do a major project then take too long deciding what the next major project should be that by the time it finally happens, they've "cooled" and it becomes another "comeback".

Even between The Muppets and MMW, even though the decision to make a sequel was done rather quickly, there was still do much time between the two and they weren't really doing anything between aside from dvd promotion. They went from the 2011 movie and major fullscale promotion to another major promo blitz when the dvd came out. Crickets. Promotional blitz for MMW where they had to get back into the public eye after having laid low for awhile (which is what i think affected the performance) then another promo blitz for MMW dvd.

But the thing is instead of doing a whole bunch of things around a release, they should be a fairly constant stream of little but effective things in between to keep their momentum going. Things like the Muppisodes (of which there should have been more) or just viral videos not connected with plugging the films should have been rolling out on the regular to keep up the interest. Keep things rolling like traveling on a highway regular and fast, not like a bus stopping then starting, stopping then starting. Keep them from "going anywhere" so they don't have to make a "comeback" when the next Biggie project is ready because they won't have gone anywhere.

I think part of that comes from the current organizational structure of The Muppets within Disney. At first there was a specific Muppets Studio division first headed up by Chris Curtin which was getting the Muppets off to a great start getting them out with multiple platforms and that was going well until internal politics across Disney leadership took him out and replaced with Russell Hampton who really wasn't a "Muppet person" and didn't really care too much about his job in that position. Thankfully that was shortlived and Lylle Breier took his place and it was more what you saw with Curtin's tenure but better (with some slight monkey wrenches thrown in the mix with the writers strike period). It was the various seeds Breier was planting that caused the Muppets' popularity to grow and lay the groundwork for the success they had with the 2011 movie. But around that time, from what i've been able to gather (i've never really gotten any clear answers on this), the operational structure of the Muppets, once they started working on the movie shifted to where Breier was no longer actually in charge of them and they've since basically been handled/managed by the movie promotion team. They need another Lylle Breier (if not herself back in the position) specifically looking after the Muppet franchise's best interests on a constant basis and not just patchwork streams of promotion once a movie or dvd is "ready". (And when doing the promotional blitz for the dvds, they need to remember that not everyone has blu-ray and that good extras need to be on both dvd and blu-ray - otherwise you're leaving out part of your target audience and wasting all this great new stuff on only a portion of those who will be able to view them thus creating a level of apathy in those who would normally be excited about the home release.)

Viral videos need to be a big part of that strategy again - we need the kind of stuff they were doing in the late 00's between projects as well as a return to what muppets.com was like at that time with regular updates and inspired random lunacy.

 

[Drtooth]

Maybe they should put the Muppisodes on first, and if those work, make an actual series. They could air on Disney Junior like Cars Toons and replace that god-awful Nina Needs to Go! show. (And if you don't know what that is, be glad).

i was thinking, maybe... not Disney Junior? The Disney channel and Disney XD have shorts as well. Cars, Mickey Mouse, Star Wars Rebels preview Shorts... none of those need a preschool audience.

I think the next Muppet movie, if we do get one, should be "The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made". Who's with me?

ugh... if I hear Muppet's Cheapest Movie one more time on this site, I swear... at this point, I'd rather have Muppet Wizard of Oz 2 then that film. I'm going to start a thread on why MCM would be a bad project one of these days.

Even between The Muppets and MMW, even though the decision to make a sequel was done rather quickly, there was still do much time between the two and they weren't really doing anything between aside from dvd promotion. They went from the 2011 movie and major fullscale promotion to another major promo blitz when the dvd came out. Crickets. Promotional blitz for MMW where they had to get back into the public eye after having laid low for awhile (which is what i think affected the performance) then another promo blitz for MMW dvd.

But the thing is instead of doing a whole bunch of things around a release, they should be a fairly constant stream of little but effective things in between to keep their momentum going. Things like the Muppisodes (of which there should have been more) or just viral videos not connected with plugging the films should have been rolling out on the regular to keep up the interest. Keep things rolling like traveling on a highway regular and fast, not like a bus stopping then starting, stopping then starting. Keep them from "going anywhere" so they don't have to make a "comeback" when the next Biggie project is ready because they won't have gone anywhere.

I think part of that comes from the current organizational structure of The Muppets within Disney. At first there was a specific Muppets Studio division first headed up by Chris Curtin which was getting the Muppets off to a great start getting them out with multiple platforms and that was going well until internal politics across Disney leadership took him out and replaced with Russell Hampton who really wasn't a "Muppet person" and didn't really care too much about his job in that position. Thankfully that was shortlived and Lylle Breier took his place and it was more what you saw with Curtin's tenure but better (with some slight monkey wrenches thrown in the mix with the writers strike period). It was the various seeds Breier was planting that caused the Muppets' popularity to grow and lay the groundwork for the success they had with the 2011 movie. But around that time, from what i've been able to gather (i've never really gotten any clear answers on this), the operational structure of the Muppets, once they started working on the movie shifted to where Breier was no longer actually in charge of them and they've since basically been handled/managed by the movie promotion team. They need another Lylle Breier (if not herself back in the position) specifically looking after the Muppet franchise's best interests on a constant basis and not just patchwork streams of promotion once a movie or dvd is "ready". (And when doing the promotional blitz for the dvds, they need to remember that not everyone has blu-ray and that good extras need to be on both dvd and blu-ray - otherwise you're leaving out part of your target audience and wasting all this great new stuff on only a portion of those who will be able to view them thus creating a level of apathy in those who would normally be excited about the home release.)

Viral videos need to be a big part of that strategy again - we need the kind of stuff they were doing in the late 00's between projects as well as a return to what muppets.com was like at that time with regular updates and inspired random lunacy.

As I've said a hundred times, the franchise is stronger than one movie. MMW basically made just under what MCC did. Guess what movie has been so vindicated by home video that it's become one of the most popular Muppet films outside the fanbase? Of course, apples and oranges on count of one being holiday related... but Muppets have never made that much money. TM's almost 90 Million opening was the second most successful Muppet movie after the first. The other famous classics have settled in the 50-60 range. Whatever the reason, classic style, non-hip plotline, Ricky Gervais turning off hipsters and family conservative minds alike, following in a long line of kid's movies with that lucky piece of crap The Nut Job settling into a nice slot before Lego and Peabody tired everyone out. Seriously... *&^%$ the Nut Job. Had it been released in the Summer it would have made less than that Legends of Oz piece of crap. Maybe Disney should just dump the next movie on a January.

Measuring franchises based on movies is a lousy reality, mostly built on impatience. You either see the film do poorly and the cartoon/comic/whatever is never seen again (until the next reboot), or the film doing so well that you see nothing but the film version. The only thing that really seemed to be immune is TMNT, as the current Nickelodeon cartoon is more successful at bring the characters back than the movie, even though the movie was pretty successful. I see more and more toon Turtles stuff than movie Turtles. Just, like, action figures and a Crush Soda tie in. We'd be here all day if I listed all the stuff the toon turtles was slapped on. From Go-Gurt to (and I kid you not) watering cans. Seriously... The Muppets have had 7 previous theatrical movies, 4 DTV specials that are still in print, a 5 season TV show (which they only released 3 seasons of)... Disney has a lot of previous Muppet stuff to make money off of. T-shirts alone would make a decent amount.

As for the promotion, DW hit the nail on the head. Disney's strange cautiousness kept the Muppets out of the public eye in between TM and MMW. Then they saturated everything with Muppets just before the movie hit. They put out too much too fast, instead of a steady stream of non-promotional appearances and web videos. Web videos make all the difference. The ALS ice bucket thing with Kermit alone has well over a million views. That speaks louder than a film ever can. We need more things like Bohemian Rhapsody and the single Muppisode. And we need it in between major projects.