Weinstein rolls with Fraggle Rock movie

[RedPiggy]

Supposedly, according to Cory's blog, the conversation between him and Whiningsteins is improving. Let's hope Cory can bring in Convincing John to make them make this movie the way it needs to be.

 

[Drtooth]

Hey everyone, relax. Here's the good news: I had a very nice sit-down with the Weinstein Company last week. Turns out I, um, got their attention. We're having some good and civil conversations about what kind of movie they want, which has changed significantly since I started this process so long ago. I don't know if the end result will be something I agree with, or something I still want to direct. But I'm hangin' in there and the conversations continue. So take heart.

Sounds reasonable, but still... it also has a negative connotation. If Weinstines want to go another direction, we could easily see a hack director like Tim Hill (Fraggles checking their mail! Whole movie could focus on Boober doing laundry and watching it dry at length) botch a bad script up, making a bad movie even worse.

The worry lies in the suggestion that they want something different in the movie than initially. I take that as, "Sure, at the beginning when we had money we could have made a risky investment on a sweet and thought provoking franchise reboot... but now we're desperate to stay in business and we're willing to make everything look and sound like everything else in a shallow attempt to get the same shrinking audience that likes loud, garish kids movies." The problem lies there. They could easily lose MORE money making a jaded, pop culture ridden, at the moment fest. Again, if you feel that you get more viewers alienating the fan base while trying to court an audience too young to know or care about what it is. Underdog was a failure. Dragonball was a failure. Heck, you could even do right and get some tiny aspect flaw and it will fail.

The best way to NOT lose money off of a remake is to NOT do a remake. But this is FAR from a remake to everyone at Henson and everyone on this site. We have NEVER had a Fraggle movie. Not even a telefilm. We've had 2 Sesame Street ones and 6 theatrical Muppet ones. Had they made a movie back in the day (during or after the series), it could have gotten more of an audience than they did on a premium cable station. This film is bigger than a lame nostalgia cash grab based movie. This is our ONLY chance to ever see Red, Wembley, Gobo, Boober, and Mokey on the big screen. I don't want the only Fraggles to be caught on film to be Uncle Matt in the background of MTM. I don't want the other characters to have just been used to fill up a crowd scene in MTI. I wanna see Doozers, Gorgs, and as many of them as possible.

Heck... worst comes to worst... CGI the Doozers if they have to. Just use the Waldo.

I think we have to actually GO to Weinstine at this point and politely suggest them to keep Corey on and to let HIM do the movie HE wants to do. Get that Zappa kid that wrote the original treatment to oversee it. Call up all the available puppeteers and have them give their input. This movie HAS to be made, and the window of opportunity is closing. They've been niggling and haggling long enough for them to start niggling and haggling in another direction. A stalled picture never turns out right.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

And I'd love to see Doc and Sprocket in the film--if they plan to do that, it's time to get it going now.

 

[Super Scooter]

http://youbentmywookie.com/features/ybmw-exclusive-interview-fraggle-rock-director-cory-edwards-9359
I gotta say, neither side's sounding so great anymore. Weinstein tossing the word edgy around (but claiming that only means "more sophisticated"). Since none of us have actually read Cory's script, it could be a lot more "kiddy" than anything the Fraggles ever did. And I've really never liked the way he describes Wembley. His ideas for the character are accurate, but incomplete. He never mentions Wembley's wembling, nervousness, or worrisome qualities.

Anyway, I want to hear something from Weinstein. Right now we're only hearing Cory's side, and while I'm grateful that he's been very open about discussing the film with fans, I want Weinstein's take. More than that, I want Henson's take. They must have the final say in what happens with these characters.

Personally, I would love to see the surviving writers from Fraggle Rock each get their input on the script. Get Jocelyn Stevenson, Susan Juhl, David Young, Laure Phillips, and Sugith Varughese to take a stab at it. And, darn it, get Michael K. Frith back! THEN you will have an edgy, sophisticated, FRAGGLE film.

 

[Luke]

I don't honestly think there is anything you could actually do to Fraggle to make it edgy and it still ending up being "Fraggle Rock". The older audience remember it how it was, thats the whole point, i dont think having them doing anything "edgy" is going to convince people who have never seen Fraggle to see the movie. They can move the pace along a little faster, expand the world, make it look a lot more "realistic" .. i can see that getting kids to watch it, but as for "edgy, i just don't get that.

As for Doc and Sprocket, Doozers, Gorgs, Trash Heap. I think the trash heap works well as a narrator or scenes to move the story along. I don't really see the Doozers and Doc and Sprocket as central to the story as the Gorgs. I think kids would prefer they reached the outside world through the Gorg garden and get chased by giants than go through an old mans workshop. Don't get me wrong, all of them are important elements to the original show, but visuals are very important, so i don't see why the Gorgs are getting a bum deal lol.

 

[Super Scooter]

Also, I really don't like the advice he took from Seth Green. You don't attract the fans by referencing other stuff from the series. You attract the fans by telling a good story and staying true to the show's roots and true to the characters. I'm not going to sit in a theater thinking "Oooh! Red just said 'rock hockey!' This is the coolest movie ever!" I'm going to think, "Gosh... what the heck does this scene/story have anything to do with rock hockey?"

It's important to know the characters and the Rock's history, but if that sort of thing is all your basing your connection to fans on, it's not going to work. After all, Muppets from Space referenced past productions (Scooter selling stuff, the pictures on the mantel), and Muppets from Space sucked.

I agreee with you totally, Luke. The Gorg problem seems like it could be an easy fix. And edgy Fraggles are just no good.

 

[Luke]

Also, I really don't like the advice he took from Seth Green. You don't attract the fans by referencing other stuff from the series.

Yeah i noticed that, they made it sound like he went up to Seth Green and asked the easiest shortcut to getting "fan geeks" on side in a retro movie. It's great he wants to reference things from the past shows but the most important thing is to get a feel for the whole concept and character relations. If you don't have that, you don't have a true Fraggle movie.

Didn't Jerry Juhl write some kind of Henson "bible", on Fraggle and the whole evolution and back story?. I wonder if Cory has seen that?

 

[Drtooth]

Also, I really don't like the advice he took from Seth Green. You don't attract the fans by referencing other stuff from the series. You attract the fans by telling a good story and staying true to the show's roots and true to the characters. I'm not going to sit in a theater thinking "Oooh! Red just said 'rock hockey!' This is the coolest movie ever!" I'm going to think, "Gosh... what the heck does this scene/story have anything to do with rock hockey?"

It's important to know the characters and the Rock's history, but if that sort of thing is all your basing your connection to fans on, it's not going to work. After all, Muppets from Space referenced past productions (Scooter selling stuff, the pictures on the mantel), and Muppets from Space sucked.

I agreee with you totally, Luke. The Gorg problem seems like it could be an easy fix. And edgy Fraggles are just no good.

Lemme just say this. I went to see Get Smart a couple years back or whenever it was, and I was the ONLY one who really laughed when Maxwell said signature catchphrases like "The Old...Trick" or "Missed it by that much." and the theater was CROWDED.

Personally, I want nods to the old series, references to past episodes here and there as long as they're organic. MFS has been stated, but really the reason WHY it sucked was the talentless director who pulled great things out of the script, including the deeper ending, more sci-fi film nods (this was the summer of Star Wars... it was ingrained in every film makers mind to reference it somehow), and the Uncle Matt cameo... all and all so they can have more scenes of the muppets checking mail, mowing lawns, brushing their teeth... If he made a sequal, it would have been called "The Muppets go to the Laundromat" and they'd just sit their for 90 minutes waiting for their clothes to dry and maybe making small talk.

I don't honestly think there is anything you could actually do to Fraggle to make it edgy and it still ending up being "Fraggle Rock". The older audience remember it how it was, thats the whole point, i dont think having them doing anything "edgy" is going to convince people who have never seen Fraggle to see the movie. They can move the pace along a little faster, expand the world, make it look a lot more "realistic" .. i can see that getting kids to watch it, but as for "edgy, i just don't get that.

Edgy is code word for unfunny sex jokes, making fun of the subject material, and farts. Lots of farts and poop. Oh, and usage of hip urban lingo like "Word Up!", "All That", "Let's get Jiggy with it" and my personal favorite the whole Snoop Dogg "izzle" bit. Basically stuff that NO ONE uses anymore. I'd hate to see the phrase "In da House" used at ALL in the movie, but they think it will get people who don't care or don't remember the Fraggles into the theaters.

I'm glad there's a chat going on about what they want in a movie and what he wants, but it could easily end up sour. We need to actually start writing Henson or someone saying we want Corey's movie, not another Smurfs or Chipmunks. I'd rather have a movie like Speed Racer that fails because of the director, but they manage to get everything right anyway than something like Underdog which fails by getting everything WRONG because they think it's gonna get more butts in the seats.

 

[RedPiggy]

I don't really see the Doozers and Doc and Sprocket as central to the story as the Gorgs.

It would depend, you know. If Cotterpin is really going to be the gang's "geek" to help them navigate the modern world, then obviously the fact Doozers are far more technologically minded than Fraggles ever were will be important. Doc's plot usually related to the Gorgs' plot in some way. If the movie is really going to be finding a lost Matt, one wonders what the parallel story would be for Doc and the Gorg family.

You attract the fans by telling a good story and staying true to the show's roots and true to the characters.

I would say it would depend on how you do it. The new Batman movies, Star Trek ... those reference A LOT but they don't look like "Can we be invited into the geek club too?". I sincerely doubt Red is going to just be walking down a tunnel and blurt out "I play rock hockey!" Surely, Cory isn't that bad a writer. Now, when they're all out in Outer Space and just went through a crazy action sequence, I can see a frazzled Red Fraggle pant and moan about how even the dangerous rock hockey wasn't THAT bad. It's in character, it's a reference, and it would work a heckuva lot better than just throwing out a reference for no good reason.

The Gorg problem seems like it could be an easy fix.

I can imagine, though I hope it wouldn't be there, Fraggles telling some Silly Creatures about their universe and people imagining a Godzilla parody of Junior knocking over buildings and such.

If he made a sequal, it would have been called "The Muppets go to the Laundromat" and they'd just sit their for 90 minutes waiting for their clothes to dry and maybe making small talk.

I wasn't as against it, but you make it sound like Boober wrote the script.

 

[Luke]

Edgy is code word for unfunny sex jokes, making fun of the subject material, and farts. Lots of farts and poop. Oh, and usage of hip urban lingo like "Word Up!", "All That", "Let's get Jiggy with it" and my personal favorite the whole Snoop Dogg "izzle" bit. Basically stuff that NO ONE uses anymore. I'd hate to see the phrase "In da House" used at ALL in the movie, but they think it will get people who don't care or don't remember the Fraggles into the theaters.

I really doubt even in this case they are considering Fraggles doing poop and fart jokes. I think you are maybe assuming that based on previous childrens brands that have been ruined, lol, but this is Henson. There was major commotion over the line in MFS where Piggy said she had to pee. I think thats about the limit with Henson.