‘The Muppets’ Disney+ Series Not Happening As Planned
It's not time to play the music. It’s not time to light the lights. It's not time to meet the Muppets on a Disney+ Muppet Show tonight.
Although the series was never officially announced, The Hollywood Reporter says that for months, a trio of producers, including Josh Gad, have been working on a new Muppets series that would have premiered on Disney+. Now, according to THR, the show has been scrapped before it ever made it to air. According to their sources, Gad’s Muppets show fell apart because of a big change at the top of the Jim Henson Studio:
Sources say the creative differences arose after producers Muppets Studios recently changed executives. [Eddy] Kitsis, [Adam] Horowitz and Gad had been prepping what they playfully referred to as Muppets 1984, an eight-episode limited series that took place after the events of Muppets Take Manhattan. Kitsis and Horowitz had been working directly with Muppets Studios vp Debbie McClellan on the project. However [her replacement, David Lightbody] wanted to do his own take on The Muppets, while Kitsis, Horowitz and Gad felt strongly about their vision for the show.
A Muppet Show set in the glory days of the characters is an intriguing idea — not that we’ll ever see it now. This setback comes only a few years after the last attempted Muppets revival, titled The Muppets, lasted just one rocky season on ABC. As a great frog once said, it’s not easy being green.
There will be Muppets content on Disney+ even without this show; at D23 this summer, the company announced a series of unscripted shorts with the characters called Muppets Now. Disney+ launches on November 12.
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