Re: Muppets Live Another Day
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 10:01 am
Oh, I missed that. It was really funny, though. Why so many canceled Muppet projects?! 
A shame this won't come to fruition. It sounds wonderful.But Disney also said no to another Muppet streaming project, one that could have potentially jump-started the brand once more. Last fall, word leaked that Josh Gad and Once Upon a Time producers Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis were working on a new Muppet project for Disney+ that would feature songs from the Frozen husband/wife duo of Bobby and Kristen Lopez. Titled Muppets Live Another Day, it was set a year after the events of The Muppets Take Manhattan and was, according to Gad, “Muppets by way of Stranger Things.” This is mostly true. I was given a copy of the script for the project and can say that Muppets Live Another Day was a big, hearty, extremely funny musical mystery that sees the Muppets reunited after a shadowy figure starts kidnapping them (there are shades of Watchmen, another ’80s-set staple). It was a bold concept, rooted in Muppet classicism but willing to push the franchise in new directions. It also maintained the classic Muppet brand of irreverence, self-referentiality, let’s-put-on-a-show theatricality, and heart in a way that no recent Muppet project has.
Yet Disney wound up passing on the show, even though Muppets Live Another Day could have been a flagship series for Disney+—with the Muppets sending up the trappings of a streaming series in the same way the original Muppet Show played with the boundaries of the variety show format. Instead, as Fast Company noted when reporting about the project’s cancelation, “The checkered history of the Muppets under Disney’s ownership continues.”
No way- Muppets Most Wanted was a very satisfying follow-up. (It even has 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.)VanityFair wrote:but it was followed by a disappointing 2014 sequel that brought the franchise back to square one.
Maybe Disney doesn't hold any music rights for streaming of The Muppet Show...?VanityFair wrote:the entire run of The Muppet Show...Then again: three whole seasons of The Muppet Show were already remastered and cleared for release on DVD in 2005, 2007, and 2008, with only minor alterations.
When will he be allowed to be in charge of creative decisions, though, with Iger contining to take the lead?VanityFair wrote:there might be a new champion for the characters in the form of Bob Chapek, the company’s new CEO and chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products.
I don't think the film did nearly as well as the first one commercially. And even critically, I don't remember anyone raving about this film or claiming it was a must-see.blackcauldron85 wrote:No way- Muppets Most Wanted was a very satisfying follow-up. (It even has 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.)VanityFair wrote:but it was followed by a disappointing 2014 sequel that brought the franchise back to square one.