A while back this birdy dropped some concept art for The Happytime Murders, a noir film done with puppets from the Henson people. No word what happened to the source, but I figure the bird’s singing them canary tunes in a concrete cage in the drink. So anyways, the writer/director of the project, Todd Berger, spilled a few beans about Happytime during the premiere of his latest film, It’s a Disaster. Here’s some dynamite in your bloomers: Berger’s gunning for a hard R rating.
“There is swearing, there’s sex, violence, murder,” he said. There are humans in this picture too, living side-by-side like the goons and the toons in Roger Rabbit. I’m wondering if some Johns or Trixies are going to push the plush, if you catch my drift.
Don’t expect Meet the Feebles-style raunch, though. Sounds like there’s a higher aim than songs about messy hobbies. See, Berger also said, “I want to try to make the Heat of puppet movies. I want to be The Dark Knight or Heat but in a world where puppets and humans coexist.” Those are some big pants and big shoes there. Wonder if he’s got the suspenders and laces to wear ’em. Here’s to hoping.
After the cut are Berger’s full comments about The Happytime Murders. Keep an eye out for it. This could be genuine Dillinger, dollface.
[Crave Online via JoBlo]
As excerpted by the mugs over at JoBlo:
The tone of the film: ‘I want to try to make the Heat of puppet movies. I want to be The Dark Knight or Heat but in a world where puppets and humans coexist. Brian was like, “This mystery actually needs to be interesting so that even if you took all the comedy out of it, it’s still going to be interesting to watch.”‘
How hard of an R will it be? ‘It is full-on R. There is swearing, there’s sex, violence, murder. There’s no way. Maybe with some work it could be PG-13 but as of now we’ve embraced the R rating.’
Will we recognize any characters in the film? ‘Brian has actually already been working on the main character puppet. The Creature Shop has already made a few test puppets that I’ve met in person that are amazing. Then the whole world, because it’s not associated with The Muppets which are owned by Disney, it’s a movie in which puppets and humans coexist and a lot of the supporting characters are all puppets. So they have a puppet improv group called Stuffed & Unstrung that tours around America doing improv shows. They’re going to use a lot of those puppets but they’re also going to create a bunch of new ones. There’s a whole cast of characters in the script that they’re going to create from scratch.’
