Nicholas Stoller Talks THE MUPPETS Sequel

Ryan Dosier - It's April. The Muppets, the first Muppet movie in 12 years, was released in November. That's roughly a six month span of time. Of course we already know that The Muppets co-writer Nicholas Stoller and director James Bobin are working on a follow-up film (which in itself was already crazy enough), but now they're actually talking about it! That's right, late last night the fine folks at Collider.com posted an interview with Nicholas Stoller while he was on the press tour for his and Jason Segel's new film The Five Year Engagement. Collider's Steve Weintraub did exactly what any of us would have done... and asked Stoller about the next Muppet movie. And boy, did Nick deliver.

These are the highlights from the interview:

• The Muppet Sequel is going to be a comedy caper.
• Disney really wants the sequel and they want it as soon as possible. Stoller says Disney wants to release it summer 2013 but he doesn't think that's realistic.
• Jason Segel might cameo.
• The sequel will introduce new Muppets.
• Bobin and Stoller started writing the script yesterday. They wrote 13 pages after outlining the entire movie over the past few weeks.

Watch the whole, exciting interview below...



Okay, so yeah, that's HUGE. First of all... Disney is pushing for this movie like crazy--which is crazy. It shows how proud and delighted they were by The Muppets. Disney is finally seeing the Muppets as a viable franchise and are prepared to launch them to the level of franchises like Phineas and Ferb, Cars, Toy Story, etc. This is truly amazing to me, because five years ago (even three years ago), the Muppets were obviously not a priority for the Mouse House... my oh my what a wonderful change.

If the 2013 release date is accurate, that would mean an unprecedented two year span between Muppet movies. The last time there was a two year span between Muppet movies was The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Great Muppet Caper (1981). Yes, not since the peak of Muppet popularity has there been such a strong desire to make more Muppet movies. Again, absolutely insane to be considering this in 2012... and yet another testament to how well Disney has done to revive Kermit and co.

Then there's the fact that this new film will be a "comedy caper." I absolutely love this idea. Mostly because The Great Muppet Caper is my favorite Muppet movie... but also because this fact alone could mean that we won't be seeing a direct sequel to The Muppets. All signs here point to this being a brand new story with the same Muppets that we love, apparently solving a caper and being (presumably) hilarious.

I don't know about you, Muppet fans... but I really, really could not be more thrilled by all of this information Nicholas Stoller dropped on our plates. If Disney gets what they want... we could be seeing the next Muppet movie next year. Truly, truly mind blowing.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com