Let me say this right now I LOVE The Muppets!!!! I remember waking up at 6:30am when I was little so I could sit in front of the TV and watch The Muppet Show. I grew up watching the wonderful Muppet movies (The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhattan) and even had a few Muppet toys. (I also love the word Muppet and will randomly blurt it out as my wife can attest) But over the years the Muppet movies dwindled in quality and I slowly stopped watching them, just living on my nostalgia for the old days of muppet glory.

But now theres a new hope for Muppet lovers and his name is Jason Segel. Best known for his roles in tv shows like Freaks & Geeks and How I Met Your Mother and raunchy big screen comedies like Knocked Up and the upcoming Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which he also co-wrote. While Segel may seem an unlikely person to champion the Muppets, he recently inked a deal with Disney to write a new muppet movie, with Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nick Stoller.

Now details are slowly starting to leak out, as Segel is more than willing to talk to anyone, and seemingly everyone about his plans for the film. Segel told ComingSoon.net ecstatically that working on the new Muppets movie was "hilarious, fantastic, heart-wrenching, beautiful, nostalgic and remarkable." Asked if he was a big fan of the show he continued "I just remember being 10 years old and for me Kermit was Tom Hanks. Kermit is like the original every man and I remember watching the old Muppet with my parents and seeing Peter Sellers and people like that on. I've always had Muppet pictures and figurines all through my house. Now that I'm getting to write it, I feel like all if my dreams are coming true."

Chud.com was able to get a bit of information about the plot, which matches up with a new interview from Empire Magazine released today. Chud says that "Apparently their Muppet film is going to be incredibly old fashioned, with the familiar Muppet characters putting on a show to save an old theater (the theater from The Muppet Show?). The danger? An evil character wants to tear the place down to get at the oil underneath."

Jason told Empire ""It's a classic story, It's the Muppets needing to get back together to save the show...It's going to take place all over the world. Basically, the Muppets are no longer together. So that might take a while to film. I guess they've set the precedent in that last movie (Muppets From Space) that Gonzo is, in fact, an alien, so he could well end up in space. That guy's all over the place!"

Segel says that he's "about halfway through writing the script with Nick (Stoller)" and that he's already hoping to get some of his buddies (from the Apatow Crew) into the cast. Something I was hoping for back when the project was announced. "I'm hoping there'll be cameos from our group of people," he continues. "I think that might be what makes it work. It's not going to be raunchy like our movies though! Every time I bring it up with somebody - Mila Kunis, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen – they say, 'Oh my god, you're writing me a part'. So I don't think there'll be trouble casting. I would love to star in it myself. I think that's the plan, but right now it's just a script deal".
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This new Muppet movie is taking shape very quickly and could possibly be Segel's next project. Let's hope that means we'll see it soon, I know personally I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Labels: Jason Segel, Muppets

Jason Segel, star of CBS' "How I Met Your Mother" and the upcoming feature "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" has signed, with Marshall director Nick Stoller, to create a new Muppet feature film. They duo will collaborate on the script and Stoller will Direct.

While the deal may seem strange it stems directly from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. In the film Segel's character writes a Dracula Musical performed entirely with puppets. The puppets were created by the Henson pros, which apparently gave Segel the opportunity to pitch his Muppet concept in a meeting with exec Kristin Burr. Apparently the meeting went well enough for Segel to get a deal in the room.

So what will a Segel/Stoller Muppets movie look like? Will it be another "Muppet Movie" or the next "Muppets' Wizard of Oz ?" One aspect of the muppets movies I've always loved was the cameos, so it will be interesting to see what cameos Segel and Stoller can bring, with all of their connections. (Here's hoping we see Paul Rudd!)

I guess we'll see what happens as this project progresses.

Labels: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason Segel, Muppets

So unless you're here for the first time you might know that I think Kristen Bell is one of the best actors of my generation. Last night I was lucky enough to catch a very early sneak preview of her upcoming film Forgetting Sarah Marshall. And by very early, I mean it's not coming out until next May. Which means it could be a fairly different movie by the time it comes out, but since I say Knocked Up about this long before the movie released, and with the exception of a few small snippets of dialogue it was the same film.

I've been excited about seeing this film for some time because not only am I a fan of Kristen Bell, but it was produced by Judd Apatow, the creator of both Knocked Up and The Forty Year-Old Virgin, two of the funniest movies of the last few years. While both are full of raunch they are also full of heart, so I was anticipating another film that fits in that category.
But possibly the most exciting part of the movie is that it was written by and stars Jason Segel, who has been in two of the most loved series in the CineManiac household, Freaks & Geeks and How I Met Your Mother. So it was with this anticipation that I went into the movie last night.

Jason Segel plays Peter Bretter, a struggling musician who creates the music for the hit TV show, Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime. Peter's girlfriend the titular Sarah Marshall is the shows star, and her star is rising because of it. The movie starts with "The Break-up Scene" as Sarah dumps Peter, telling him there's another guy. The scene plays out in a way that I don't think has been attempted before, so I don't want to ruin it, I'll just say it's funny. Devastated Peter tries to go on with his life, but quickly spirals into a depression he can't get out of. So on the insistence of his Step-Brother, Brian (Bill Hader) Peter decides to take a trip to get away from it all.

Peter winds up at an amazing resort in Hawaii, only to discover that his Ex, Sarah, is there with her new boyfriend/other guy, Brit Rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). It quickly becomes clear that getting over Sarah is going to be much harder than he thought. As both decide to stay at the resort, they keep running into each other, At dinner Peter, seated alone, is given "the best table in the house" because it's facing Aldous and Sarah, the next morning non-flexible Peter runs into the duo at a Yoga class, where he tries to keep up, and being an island they can't get away from each other.

Luckily for Peter, he meets a girl, Rachel, the resort's Customer Service lady played wonderfully by That 70s Show's Mila Kunis. What starts as a simple flirtation quickly (very quickly) turns into a relationship over Peter's 4 days at the Resort. While somewhat fast based, the relationship does seem fairly realistic.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fantastic supporting cast. Jonah Hill plays a resort employee whose clearly obsessed with Aldous Snow, to the extent of baking him a cake. Paul Rudd is fantastic, as always, as the local Surfing Instructor with an awful memory. SNL's Kristen Wiig steals the show in her small scene as a Yoga instructor, who fawns over Aldous and Sarah and gives Peter a hard time.
But possibly the best of the supporting cast is 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer as one half of a Mormon newlywed couple, who's having trouble in the bedroom. McBrayer's scenes are hilarious and he constantly made me laugh.

If there was any disclaimers about the movie it's the amount of sex. There are several sex scenes, each of which are played for laughs, which could turn some people off. The scenes are done in a way that there's no actual nudity, but instead implied nudity.

The cut we saw, while having some raunchy material, is definitely the cleanest of the Apatow movies so far. The other difference is that this film does not throw out a joke a second. This doesn't mean it's not funny, to the contrary I laughed as much in these as I did at Super Bad or Knocked Up. It's just a different beast altogether, and I don't think it should be compared to those, although I'm sure it will be.

Labels: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, sneak peek