Plans are under way at Walt Disney Studios for the upcoming sequel to the most recent Muppets movie.
The Muppets made over $160 million in world-wide box-office draws after its release in November, proving that The Muppets is something that modern audiences are definitely interested in.
Personally, I think Disney should turn the success into a new weekly variety show, but the next step seems to be a sequel for the new film, and the writers are planning a caper.
The Great Muppet Caper was the sequel to the original Muppet film, and so following that tradition, Nick Stoller, the co-writer of the current franchise spoke with Colliderabout the plans.
“I will say, it is a caper,” he confirmed. “It is a comedy caper. It’s similar to [The Great Muppet Caper]. [It] had dramatic connections to the first Muppet movie, but it was a whole new thing, hopefully. This is the same thing. We love The Great Muppet Caper. So this has some elements of that, but it’s different because it’s in the tone of what [we] like to do.”
He also mentioned that Jason Segel, who helped him write and produce The Muppets – and also starred in it – will definitely not be working on the film in a filmmaking capacity, though there may be a short cameo for him in the final script.
Segal left the project voluntarily, before it even began, saying that he was not interested in the sequel. He’d done what he wanted to do with The Muppets, and now he has other projects to work on. James Bobin, who directed The Muppets, will be taking Segel’s place in the other writing chair in addition to maintaining his position at the helm of the franchise.
The only danger here seems to be that Disney wants the new Muppets film very quickly, which may cause the film to feel a bit rushed – because, yes, it will have been a bit rushed.
“They want to do it,” Stoller said. “They want it as soon as possible, which is good. I’m not sure exactly when they want to release it. I think it was something like next summer. I don’t think that’s realistic in terms of getting it all together in time. But to want to do it so quickly is great. It certainly makes us want to write it quickly. I’m writing with James Bobin. We’ve outlined it over the past couple weeks and we literally started writing it yesterday. The first 13 pages are written. It is started. It is on.”
Stoller went on to reveal that the new film will feature new Muppet characters, but did not go into detail about who they would be.
The Muppets sequel is tentatively planned for a summer 2013 release.
