If you are of an age, like me, calling the Muppets “Muppets” will seem impossible to you. And it is that, on the verge of turning 70, this band of felt dolls created by Jim Henson continue to be the favorites of fans around the world. So much so that when on Twitter it was half seriously half jokingly proposed that they star in a delivery of ‘Puñales por el espalda’ with Daniel Craig, the creative team got to work.
The most talkative detective
When they first heard the idea, Rian Johnson replied “It’s a pretty good idea”, and Daniel Craig asserted “That’s a really good idea!”. Everyone began to speculate about an absolutely lysergic and fabulous film, but the director has lowered expectations: “It’s a joke that seems brilliant to me, and I ended up thinking about it seriously”. But he is a director of integrity and, sadly for our retinas, he has respect for both sagas.
I take the detective genre as seriously as I take a Muppet movie. You can have a Benoit Blanc mystery with Muppets, but they will be out of place. Or you can have a Muppets movie with Benoit Blanc, but it will feel like a Muppets movie. I wouldn’t want to compromise any of them. And I think in order to get it right and to make it work, you would have to make a choice and commit to one or the other.
However, the director of ‘Brick’ and ‘The Last Jedi’ does not throw in the towel: “If I ever made a Muppet movie, I would just want to make a good Muppet movie.” Plus, it’s not like Disney+ is willing to part with one of its most beloved intellectual properties, especially in a year that sees the release of ‘The Muppets Mayhem,’ a series on Disney+ set as a mockumentary about the band led by Animal. It’s definitely not time to turn on the music and turn on the lights yet.