Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller Sitting on ‘The Greatest Muppet Movie of All Time’

The fellas behind 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, star Jason Segel and director Nicholas Stoller, are setting the bar pretty high for their next collaboration, whether the move is tongue-in-cheek or not: they’ve titled the script for their Muppet Babies revival The Greatest Muppet Movie of All Time. Though, Muppets Take Manhattan loyalists may have a bone or two to pick when Segel and Stoller’s project is released.

It was recently announced that Flight of the Conchords director James Bobin will handle the production’s shot-calling duties, a choice that contributes nicely to the already-present Forgetting Sarah Marshall foundation, a great backbone to have, frankly. The scoop-hording folks over at The Playlist have scored an exclusive take on the now-finished script, and here’s what we’re in for:

The Greatest Muppet Movie of All Time is about Gary, Mary, and Walter (a man, his girlfriend, and the man’s life-long nondescript, brown puppet best friend) getting the old Muppet gang — now retired entertainers known for the same Muppet show we know them from — together to save the TV studio that the original show was shot in. A villain, Tex Richman (nice name, on par with Doc Hopper), bent on drilling for oil underneath the studio, is due to take over the studio in weeks and the only way to stop him? Putting on a show that draws ten million viewers (see also “Heartbroken: The Conan O’Brien Story”).

And now, the reaction:

[So is the aforementioned plot synopsis a] fun set-up? Sure. A great set-up? Not really. Aside from it being just ok, it locks the story inside the world of show business. Some of the greatest moments from the first two films happened when the Muppets were out in the real world (the gang running the hotel in ‘Caper,’ Sweetums as hired help at a used car dealership, etc.), not necessarily being themselves putting a show together. This may be what makes “The Great Muppet Caper” especially good, it leaves the show business storyline behind and lets the Muppets pretend to be normal everyday characters.

It’s a solid attempt at recapturing what made “The Muppet Show” and the first two Muppet movies so great, but “The Great Muppet Movie of All Time” is no “Great Muppet Caper” — ‘Caper’ being to the first Muppets film, what “The Empire Strikes Back” is to “Star Wars” — but it is a fresh, younger approach. Stoller and Segel have fun with the characters, are aware of what made the Muppet early years so great (winks to the audience, friendly musical numbers, single gag repetition, friendship and togetherness being the answer to everything), and hit the mark 65% of the time. We’re hoping the songs (the majority of which were missing from the script) help elevate the script from a harmless Muppet flick to a more memorable one, but there’s more work to be done first. But what their script lacks (oddly enough, this being a Muppet movie and all) is forward pulse.

Source: The Playlist