Imagine an R-rated Who Framed Roger Rabbit? with puppets and a dash of L.A. Confidential? This is the darkly comic noir passion project Brian Henson, son of the late Jim, has wanted to make for years, to no avail, with Happytime Murders. The risky feature seemed as dead as its suspects for the past couple years, but new reports suggest its come back to life.
Although the title is set to change and Erich and Jon Hoeber (the Red movies) will rewrite the script from Todd Berger (It's a Disaster) and Dee Robertson's initial drafts, the previously titled Happytime Murders is back in action again as it goes into active development. THR reports newbie film and television company STX Entertainment teams with the Jim Henson Company to hopefully make this a reality again.
Henson remains the director on the project. He previously helmed Muppet movies both good, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and bad, Muppet Treasure Island, as well as several episodes of The Skrumps, Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaurs and Muppets Tonight. Should this come together, it'll be the first movie he's directed in the past twenty years.
With a tone described as "Avenue Q meets L.A. Confidential," Henson's film explores a world where humans and puppets coexist, with humanity's fabric-laced peers considered second-class citizens. In this story, we follow a disgraced LAPD detective-turned-private eye puppet with a drinking problem, of course, who must take a case with his former human partner whenever the puppet cast of the 1980s children's TV show The Happytime Gang are murdered one-by-one.
This is the most progress the movie has made since 2012. Despite the enthusiasm behind the project and the screenplay landing on the Black list both in 2008 and 2010, the dark comedy was considered too risky whenever Lionsgate couldn't find a human star to carry financial security for the project.
At one point, Katherine Heigl was sought to lead the adult film, as Deadline reported at the time, but the deal didn't come together. The rights reverted back to Henson not long after.
With the more aggressively adult tone, there's a good chance Henson's movie may end up more Cool World than Roger Rabbit, but hopefully this comes together either way. There's a lot of great potential in this, and while chances are slim of the company throwing in cameos by various members of Sesame Street and The Muppets, there's a good chance this puppet movie may dip its hands into material not done with puppets ever on the big screen.
Image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com
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