Bleeding Cool reports that Jim Henson Studios are working on The Happytime Murders, a detective film featuring puppets as second-class citizens in a world they share with humans. The main character will be puppet private eye and ex-cop Phil Philips (pictured at left in concept art), who is tracking down a serial killer who murdered his brother and is targeting the former stars of a children’s television show. Katherine Heigl reportedly has a role in the film, which is speculated to be as Phil’s human partner.
Speculation based on early concept art and script snippets is that the movie will be rated “R”. I don’t know… I can certainly see how that would be the case from what’s shown so far, but I think it would be box office suicide to push it as hard as they initially appear to be. They describe what is basically an octopus-cow sex scene, and that’d be pretty out there even for a normal film… a few deviants aside, I don’t think the general public is looking for that in a puppet film. And I’m certain they’re not looking for it in something from Jim Henson Studios, with very Muppetesque characters (side note: since Disney owns the Muppets, I believe Jim Henson Studios is unable to use the name for this project or any other; the division of Jim Henson projects after his death has some peculiar ramifications). Go for the PG-13, guys. Don’t squick people out, and you might be the next Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Morgan on Media 
Huh. What an unusual idea. Unfortunately, I don’t think I could ever get into it — Muppet-like characters belong in feel-good musicals, not film noir!
But who knows? They might surprise me.
I understand them wanting to do something unusual — especially since, not having the Muppet name, they might want to avoid anything that can be mistaken for a Muppet production until they’ve brought themselves back into prominence again. But this is sounding like it might be a bit too far out there.
Hmmm that looks interesting. Nice find, this is the first I have heard about this project. moooooo!!! lol
At the very least, it’s a different idea, isn’t it? Thanks for stopping by!
It kind of reminds me of the puppet episode of Angel, in fact, I thought the show on that episode was called something like Happytime. No wait, it was Smile Time. Pretty close. The pic even looks a little bit like puppet Angel.
Oh, and I didn’t mention it before but welcome to the LAMB.
Thanks, Bubbawheat. I never saw that episode of Angel, but I can see how a puppet version of David Boreanaz would look kind of like what they’ve got here. Kind of funny.
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