Sorry, Kermit: Disney+ is not moving forward with its planned revival of The Muppets, our sister site Deadline reports.
Actor Josh Gad, who was set to write the new series — titled Muppets Live Another Day — along with Once Upon a Time creators Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis, confirmed the news with a tweet on Monday, stating that they “have decided to step away from Muppets Live Another Day. Sometimes, creative differences are just that. We LOVE this franchise so much & truly wish them all the best.”
UPDATE: Gad has since posted a longer statement on Instagram, expanding on the vision that he, Horowitz and Kitsis had for the show. “It was going to be Muppets by way of Stranger Things and feel like a movie spread over 6-8 episodes,” he wrote. “Part of the joy for us, by placing the Muppets in the middle of the 1980s, was to subvert and comment on our current love for all things nostalgia while at the same time allowing the characters to tell a story that would ultimately lead to and end in present day, revealing some secrets along the way.”
Muppets Live Another Day would have picked up right after the events of 1984’s The Muppets Take Manhattan, with Kermit gathering the old gang together once again to search for a missing Rowlf. The series was first reported to be in the works back in February 2018, and later earned a pilot order at the streamer.
The Muppets, of course, first broke through with the 1976-81 series The Muppet Show before launching a movie franchise. ABC attempted to bring them back in 2015 with a mockumentary-style sitcom titled The Muppets, but that was axed after just one season. Kermit and the gang, though, will still be seen on Disney+ in Muppets Now, an unscripted, short-form series first announced last month.
I’m glad that they are not going to do the show if they can’t do it right. ABC’s version was so bad that I quit watching it after a few episodes.
The show became better after the first five episodes. But by the time they started to fix things it was too late. The last episodes felt much more authentic.
Why can’t they just do the show as it originally was. I mean with the talent Disney has it would be epic!
Exactly–it’s timeless. Ripping off (or riffing on) current faddish programs is weak. Glad Disney passed on this concept.
EXACTLY! How hard is that to figure out? Do the original classic show. That’s it.
To be fair, even Jim henson had issues using these characters once the first 3 movies and the Muppet Show was over. Remember “The Jim Henson Hour” or “Muppets Tonight”?
Jim Henson had passed away a few years before “Muppets Tonight.”
I believe Disney go back to its original concept of the muppet show. It would be hit !!!
Disney has no idea how to manage the Muppets.
The “Muppets” reality show/variety show on ABC had no heart, soul, or joy and turned Miss Piggy into a bimbo.
Then, Disney fires Steve Whitmire for defending Jim Henson’s ideals.
Meanwhile, the attitude remains “Well, Disney’s better than the German company who previously owned the Muppets.”
That isn’t enough, and it’s sad to see the Muppets legacy become another cog in the Disney machine.
This may be the only Disney acquired property to be a failure. They’ve really done nothing with it or seem to know what to do with it.
It’s time for Disney to get rid of The Muppets. They’ve fumbled with the property pretty much since the day they bought it in 2004. They’ve had one good film (The Muppets 2011), and a bunch of mediocre to just bad stuff. At this point they just exist to appear on television specials (parades, concerts, etc) and strangely enough those shows are usually produced by and aired on NBC. Hell, one of the first things Disney created with the Muppets was a Christmas special that aired on NBC 11 years ago. Disney should just sell them back to The Jim Henson Company. Maybe then the property can be used for something good.
The Jim Henson company couldn’t afford to buy them. They’re a much smaller company now. Disney would be practically giving away the rights. And almost all the people who worked with the Muppets are gone.
Just get Jason Segel. He seems to be the only person to make a successful Muppets project for Disney.
I agree – loved the movie he did with the Muppets!
I didn’t. Both of the new Muppets movies were awful & totally not funny.
That’s unfortunate, I was looking forward to this series. I had faith in Gad, Horowitz, and Kitsis to make something cool that would honor the legacy of the franchise, and the expanded details presented here sounded promising to me.
Will they still be doing the shorts?
Last line of the article states “Kermit and the gang, though, will still be seen on Disney+ in Muppets Now, an unscripted, short-form series first announced last month.”
So I’m going with “Yes” ;)
I’m going to be honest, I love the Muppets but Disney kind of ruined them for me after they broke up Kermit and Miss Piggy so I wasn’t very interested in seeing this anyways. But, I did say I was going to be honest and the honest truth is that a small part of me was hoping that this revival would fix the mistakes of the mockumentary attempt that Disney had done back in 2015 (and yes, by mistake I do mean the Kermit/Miss Piggy break up), and reading the update with Josh Gad’s instagram post I do find it a pity that this project didn’t go through cause it sounds like it would have been very interesting.
I wish they’d finally get around to releasing seasons 4 & 5 of the original Muppet Show on dvd. They put out the first 3 seasons and then nothing!
They’re likely to show up on the Disney+ service, provided there’s no problem with appearance rights. That may also be a reason why they decided not to produce a new series.
Seems like nobody at Der Maus really gets the Muppets. The Henson Company should have held on to them. Comparing all these “meh” and failed Muppet projects to the love and enthusiasm that went into making the Dark Crystal prequel, the results are night and day.
I have a feeling that we may wind up seeing another Muppet movie instead. The idea would probably work better as a film anyways.