For a short time, the Jim Henson Company was adamant that they’d be moving towards using their art form in more adult filmmaking endeavors. They sold the Muppets characters to Disney to free themselves up to do just that. But with the complete and utter failure of Mirrormask last year, it looks like they’ve now abandoned that plan and are instead pushing right back into kids’ flicks.
The Movie Blog has dug up a tidbit first hinted at in a Brian Henson interview with Now Playing. Brian confirms the rumors we’ve been hearing for awhile now, that a Fraggle Rock movie is definitely coming. They’re working on a script and plan to use all the classic characters. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that Henson also engaged in some strange doubletalk by indicating that the film won’t be a sequel or continuation of the story started on the show. Are we talking about some sort of Fraggle reboot? Henson’s calling it a “revisiting”, whatever the heck that means. Your guess is as good as ours.
Right now though, Fraggle Rock is the Jim Henson Company’s number two priority. They’re focusing their energy on a Dark Crystal sequel. Their number three priority is a shudder-worthy attempt at sequalizing Labyrinth. What the heck happened to the creativity of the Henson Company? Mirrormask held so much promise, but now it looks like they’re just rehashing old ideas in a desperate bid to legitimize their existence. If that was the plan, they should have just held on to Kermit, Piggy, and Gonzo. Now all they’ve got left to milk is an ancient kids TV show and the Muppet interaction of David Bowie. Fraggle Rock might be fun as a movie, but the future of Muppetry is not at all rosy.
