Everyone wants a little help from Pixar these days!
In fact, The Hollywood Reporter hears that key talent behind Disney’s upcoming ‘Muppets’ project was recently spotted up in Emeryville. Although Pixarians won’t bring Kermit and co. to life, they may be ‘pupeteering’ the film in the right direction.
Stars and executives flew in to the Northern California studio for a table read of The Muppet’s latest script. Much like last week’s Tron: Legacy reports, one can assume that Pixar’s Brain Trust was there to strengthen the story. Sounds like Walt Disney Pictures is using its resources wisely…
On another note, this opportunity might have just been a dream come true for Pete Docter. The Up and Monsters, Inc. director has repeatedly stated in interviews that he’s a huge fan of The Muppets.
Your thoughts?
Last modified: July 21, 2010
poor disney, after their two movies got disappointing earning, now, they believe that bad story can affect box office number. don’t think all of your film is pirates of the caribbean disney!
Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please let Pete Docter write and direct the film… It would be INCREDIBLE!!!! It would be FLAWLESS!!!! (and it would be the wise thing to do). (I have nothing against the current creative team, but Pete is a level A filmmaker…)
(and besides, for the people at public relations it would be great, just imagine: “…from the Academy Award winning director of UP, and Monsters, INC…”. It would be a commercial and critical success (I can clearly see it winning the Golden Globe for best Comedy/Musical, and earning a nomination for best screenplay at the Oscars).
Soooo, if the Disney administrations has any common sense, show it by giving Pete the chance to do it…
@ the last Anonymous. There’s always the possibility of Pete Doctor writing/directing a Muppet movie further down the line, but at this point the film is already in production. It would be unprofessional of Disney to just take the film away from the current team and give it to Doctor.
I like the idea of him doing a Muppet movie eventually, but I would imagine and hope that Disney has the integrity not to disrespect the current team in that way.
“poor disney, after their two movies got disappointing earning, now, they believe that bad story can affect box office number. don’t think all of your film is pirates of the caribbean disney!”
But that’s just the problem with most studio systems. When something works, they try to make it work different stuff. We’ve seen it happen many times before:
1994: Lion King makes $300million, other studios think they just need to make an animated film and they’re rolling in cash.
2003: Nemo makes $330million, and suddenly, studios think that computer-animated films are the ticket.
2009: Avatar makes almost $2 billion worldwide, studios suddenly think the money’s in the 3D.
@ the last Illusion of Life.
I work for the Mouse, and let me tell you that:
“There’s always the possibility of Pete Doctor writing/directing a Muppet movie further down the line, but at this point the film is already in production.”
The movie hasn’t been greenlit; and it’s not in production, it’s in pre-pre-pre-production…
“It would be unprofessional of Disney to just take the film away from the current team and give it to Doctor.”
Unprofessional? Do you remember what happened to Jan Pinkava in Ratatouille or to Chris Sanders in Bolt (to name a few)? John Lasseter took the film away from them, and gave it to new directors/writers. And, that happened during production (not pre-pre-pre-production). At the end of the day, John knew what was best for those movies. (“unprofessional” would be to make a bad movie, not to fix one).
“I like the idea of him (Docter) doing a Muppet movie eventually”
Have you read Seger’s and Stoller’s muppet screenplay? It’s embarassingly bad. It feels like a (boring) TV movie, with cheesy dialogue, bad pop culture jokes, heartless, predictable, unoriginal (the muppets try to save their studio from a Rich Texan who wants to destroy it, by putting on a show… Hooray… The muppets have already done that (do you remember? They did that in an incredibly bad tv Christmas special). Do you remember lame Disney movies from the 90’s? (like Inspector Gadget, Flubber and My favourite Martian?), well this feels just like that…
Do you want to see how lame (and popcultured) the dialogue is? Check this out:
Rich Texman: Oh it’s as over as Barney the
Dinosaur. Nothing you can do.
“but I would imagine and hope that Disney has the integrity not to disrespect the current team in that way.”
If they don’t disrespect the current team, the movie will underperform… and if it underperforms, there will be no muppet movie further down the line…
Ilussion, this is the film bussiness, not charity… At the end of the day, if what the current team has is not working, well, they should fix it, even if that means changing the team…
YAY! New Muppet Movie!