DarkCrystal Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The last thing we saw from the filmmakers behind the sequel to Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal was a glimpse of storyboards, back in October. Since then there's been no word on when the film would finish production, or even a glimpse at a solid release date. All of which served to fuel a rumor that began on film ick, and then started to work it's way through the mill. G4 The Feed has now reported that The Power Of The Dark Crystal has been put on hold. Genndy Tartakovsky has also gone on hiatus, with no plans to re-start. It's all still speculation at this point, since The Jim Henson Company has yet to release an official statement to confirm or deny.

As the story goes, the film has gone on permanent hiatus while The Jim Henson Company concentrates on other projects such as Edward Gorey's The Doubtful Guest and a film based on the Monster Blood Tattoo. If the rumors are true that The Dark Crystal 2 has been put back on the shelf, it doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence that The Henson Company is going to follow through with these other projects either.

Although I don't frequently throw links their way, the folks over at MTV Movies have a nice little write-up on the Henson Company's return to the world of The Dark Crystal. It has long been believed Jim Henson and Frank Oz could have put together a much more fantastic and successful film had puppetry and cinematography been more advanced art forms in the early 80s. Now, here we are two decades later and Henson's children are set to test that belief. I belong firmly in the camp of fans who loves the film as a cult classic, but then again, I am an open Jim Henson apologist -- I love the man and nearly everything he touched.

It is always a risk to sequel or remake a "cult classic" film, as it's tough to capture that sort of magic twice. Nonetheless, Henson Company is teaming up with director Genndy Tartakovsky and original script writer David Odell in a bold attempt to sequel one of the film properties the company did not sell off to Disney. If a team can be assembled to bring this thing to fruition, I imagine these would be the folks to do it. Odell provides the best link to the previous flick, as he and Henson had discussed sequel plans in the past, and thus fans can be assured the basic outline of the new film was contrived with none other than Jim himself. If you are interested in seeing some early concept art/storyboards for the film, I suggest you swing on by MTV and check out their write-up. As excited as I am for this flick, I'm even more anxious for the occasionally discussed Fraggle Rock movie. I mean, at the rate the old Henson team has been dropping, we need to get to work on that while we've still got the cast more or less intact.

That's right, good readers, the Fraggle Rock rumors have returned, and the Henson company revealed they are quite serious about plans to bring Gobo, Red and the rest of the gang to big screen. In their panel at Comic Con, the Henson Co. discussed updating several of their classic titles:

1. Yes, Power of the Dark Crystal is happening now, and it even pulls a small bit of inspiration from the legend himself, Mr. Jim Henson. He had entertained ideas of a Crystal sequel on more than one occasion, and we are told it was his desire to go beyond the adventures of the Gelfings and deeper into the world itself. The new movie will attempt to do that, depending far more on CG than puppetry.
2. Bits were shown from the late night puppet show Henson Co. is developing -- sans Muppets, of course, as they were sold to Disney -- and a puppet improv performance troupe that apparently has to be seen to be believed. We're glossing over these because they aren't movie related, follow the "read" link at the bottom if you want to know more.
3. Fraggle Rock is still a long way off, but they are in the early stages of development and definitely plan to bring the film into existence.
4. No plans for a Labyrinth sequel ... yet. They are too wrapped up in Crystal work to seriously contemplate it for now. Ask them again later. There IS a graphic novel on the way, however.

The Henson Company is back. Their first CG movie Mirror Mask made it's debut at Sundance, they did awesome work on the Vogons in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and this Sunday we have The Muppets Wizard of Oz on ABC. Okay, we'll wait to pass judgement on the last one. So when Variety announced on Friday that a sequel was in the works to the 1982 fantasy classic The Dark Crystal, we should have been happy. Even Aint it cool news fears the worst. The good news is David Odell is back as screenwriter. The bad news is Jim Henson who wrote the story and co-directed the first film is... well... not able to return. And no news on who's in the director's chair, but we have a feeling Frank Oz is sitting this one out.