“The Muppets” is Disney’s reboot of the classic franchise. It’s written by and stars Jason Segel. While the film has been doing well at early test screenings, veterans of the TV show and previous movies believe that Segel, co-writer Nicholas Stoller and director James Bobin didn’t have a complete understanding of the Muppets characters and were willing to sacrifice the characters’ integrity to land a joke.
The Hollywood Reporter has a lengthy article that discusses how many of the old crew members are “outraged” by the “crude” updating. “They’re looking at the script on a joke-by-joke basis, rather than as a construction of character and story,” says one.
There is a list of concerns: (without giving too much away): Kermit would never live in a mansion, as he does in this movie; The Muppets, depicted in the script as jealous of Kermit’s wealth, would not have broken up in bitterness; The script “creates a false history that the characters were forced to act out for the sake of this movie,” says an old Muppets hand.
It’s interesting that Segal is such a die-hard “Muppets” fan (like his character in the movie) that he would be O.K. with an inaccurate script and the changing of backstories and the personalities of these well-known characters.
Frank Oz (director of “The Muppets Take Manhattan”) said, “I don’t think they respected the characters. But I don’t want to go on about it like a sourpuss and hurt the movie.” Oz actually was thinking of doing a new “Muppet” movie and pitching it to Disney, but the studio decided to go in Segal’s direction.
One of the things I’m most concerned about involving “The Muppets” (that none of these people even mention) are all of the celebrity cameos. There are about 25 of them. With so many stars there’s a good chance they’ll take the focus away from the story and the Muppet characters, which everybody wants to see. And how will Segal and Amy Adams share screen time with Kermit, Fozzie and the rest? We’ll all find out on November 23rd.