Brian Henson Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Muppet fever is in the air these days. Jason Segel got The Jim Henson Co. to help him whip up those awesome puppets for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That led to the funny man getting the honor of making a new Muppet movie. And now we're getting more Hensonesque film awesomeness. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the company is going to the adult world of film noir.

Oh yes -- they've whipped up a murder mystery called The Happytime Murders (written by Todd Berger from a story created with Dee Austin Robertson), and Brian Henson will direct it. In this tale of adult puppet goodness, there's an alternate world where puppets and humans co-exist -- but not exactly peacefully -- the puppets are considered second-class citizens. The murder comes in when "the puppet cast of an '80s children's TV show called 'The Happytime Gang' begins to get murdered one by one, [and] a disgraced puppet LAPD detective turned private eye -- with a drinking problem, no less -- takes on the case."

Awesome. I can only hope there some Nick and Nora noir swank to this whole deal, but I do wonder: HOW adult will they get? The piece references Avenue Q, which is a big ol' raunch fest, but that might be too racy? However adult it gets, this sounds good. Do you agree?

I don't think I could ever articulate what it is about Labyrinth that's so wonderful, but it's safe to say that I honestly have never met anyone who saw it and didn't love it. (Those of you who think puppets are stupid need to stay away.) The songs are outrageously catchy (I've had Dance, Magic, Dance in my head since I first read this story Friday morning, dammit), the characters -- human and otherwise -- are uniformly winning and it's got both David Bowie AND Jennifer Connelly (before she got her boobs, boys) -- what's not to love? While most of us have to make do with watching it on our televisions, those of you in LA have a special treat heading your way: On July 20 at 8pm, the movie will be screened at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. But wait, there's more! In addition to seeing the magic on the big screen, you'll also get to witness a "post-screening conversation featuring the creative team behind Labyrinth, including [Brian] Henson, who is the voice of Hoggle and co-CEO of the Jim Henson Company." Sigh. Well, at the very least someone who gets to go better send us a report about how great it is. Please?

While discussing the DVD release of Henson Co's TV show Dinosaurs in a recent interview with Now Playing, Brian Henson dropped a few tantalizing details about two highly anticipated upcoming Henson film projects: Dark Crystal 2 and Fraggle Rock: The Movie. Yours truly is very excited about both these films, although the potential for destroying my childhood memories does make me a bit hesitant. Nonetheless, hope springs eternal! The information is as follows ...

• Fraggle Rock, though already announced and definitely coming, is still in very early stages. It is the number two priority right now, but a script is being written. Henson said to consider the movie something of a "revisiting" of the classic characters, updated slightly to reflect the change in time. The characters we all know and love will remain the same -- but the story will likely not be a direct sequel to the old series. Henson indicated the plan is "to do something that sort of stands next to Fraggle Rock rather than [being] a continuation of [it]." This makes me a bit nervous, because I'm always hesitant when people try to "update" classic stories ... but the idea is sound, and the original cast is returning so hopefully it'll maintain the classic Fraggle Rock feel.
• Dark Crystal 2 is the top priority for Henson right now, and is moving along with a full head of steam. According to Henson, "that one's pretty far along. It's got a good, strong script, a great vision for how to do it and we're just trying to [put it together]." They're attempting to recruit the original voice actors where possible, and bring in very good imitators when necessary.
• And the final, crazy bit of news from Jim Henson's son is the studio's desire to return to the world of their cult classic Labyrinth. Henson described this idea by saying "Actually, we're talking about doing something different with Labyrinth but I can't really talk about it." The existence of such a film is highly contingent upon the success of Dark Crystal 2. This means get out there and watch DC2 at least a dozen times each and encourage your friends to do the same. And by encourage, I mean force.