In a world gone mad, the Muppets will return to save us.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall writer-star Jason Segel and director Nick Stoller have been booked by Disney to make a new Muppet Movie. They’ll collaborate on the script and Stoller will direct.
According to Variety, the idea came from a scene in Sarah Marshall where Segel’s character makes a puppet Dracula movie. The puppets were made by Henson puppeteers, and the contact with them got Segel in to pitch his idea for a Muppet movie to Disney exec Kristen Burr. The deal was done and off we go…well, not quite–Segel and Stoller are also working on Five Year Engagement, again co-writing, Segel starring and Stoller directing. Segel also is starring in I Love You, Man for Dreamworks.
If you haven’t at least seen the original Muppet Movie, see it. It’s clever and charming (I know, not trendy words that grab moviegoers’ attention these days) and has a few good songs. I have reservations about Sarah Marshall, mostly because of the slightly mawkish title and because I feel like it’s been slammed over my head and bludgeoned into me how this is another great movie from the same great people who did the great Knocked Up, which of course was (supposedly) the greatest comedy of the last 50 years. But that’s not the movie’s fault, it’s the media’s and the marketers, so I’ll try not to judge Segel and Stoller’s work without seeing it. And if they’re that into the Muppets, well, they can’t be all bad.
