I’m a fan of the Henson puppetry, and I’ve loved some of their work. Now though, according to Cinema Blend, they are set to go against their reasons for selling to Disney and return to their muppet past:
Muppet Central News reports that The Jim Henson Company is working to create a new Fraggle Rock feature film. Reportedly, the movie will feature Fraggles in outer space (not the one with stars, our world)…they’re shooting for family film…
…The thing that might seem a little confusing here is that part of the Henson Company’s reason for selling the Muppets to Disney, was to free themselves up to pursue more “adult” projects like the upcoming film MirrorMask and the unfairly cancelled TV show “Farscape”.
So why go back to something like Fraggle Rock? If you were going to revive the Muppets of the past surely you would go to a proper Muppet movie with Kermit and the gang? I loved them way more than Fraggle. The big question here though is really is this a turnaround on previous thinking, are they abandoning the idea of more adult features? Does this mean the end for a Dark Crystal remake The Power of the Dark Crystal and more projects like MirrorMask and Farscape? I hope not, it would be a shame to lose that and have the company stuck in and old, although not entirely unappreciated, rut with the Muppets.
I’m a fan of Fraggle Rock too and grew up with it. I got so happy when I found out the series was coming out on DVD. And I know I’ll be there on opening day with my girlfriend’s 2 daughters. :)
But I know Henson’s more adult film days are far from over and infact pertty awsome and bright to me. Got this from AnimeNewsNetwork.com, “According to this article at The Hollywood Reporter, Jim Henson Studios, along with Angry Films’ Don Murphy, is producing the upcoming Parasyte movie, based on the popular manga.”
“”Parasyte”: This horror film, which centers on a man who has an alien parasite embedded in his hand, is being directed by Takashi Shimizu and produced by the Jim Henson Co. and Angry Films’ Don Murphy.”
And heres a plot summary for the Parasyte manga: Alien pods come to Earth and, naturally, start taking over Human Hosts. One such pod only manages to take over one human’s, Shin Izumi, left arm. Together they grow and co-exist, all the while the other aliens are making meals of other humans; Shin feels he must put a stop to it all, but his alien, Lefty, doesn’t see why.
I think it sounds pretty cool, just don’t know about the alien arm’s name, Lefty. LOL. I hope they change it for the movie, if the movie turns out to be that much based on the comic at all.
The Muppets was all well and good, but the movies got tired (or even started tired). I was and still am a big Fraggle Rock fan which actually had some story and sense to it. But the idea of setting it in space sounds odd, and I would rather just see a new series along the lines of before. But even saying that, there were a lot of episodes and I would settle for some of those coming out on DVD first… although I remember hearing rumours of that a while ago, so perhaps they have? Must check!…
Anyway, whatever happens let’s hope they don’t forget the Doozers!