For many fans who have been waiting for what seems like eons for a sequel to “Dark Crystal,” today’s announcement might be a kick in the balls. The Henson Company has revealed that Peter and Michael Spierig, the duo behind the thoroughly awful vampire flick “Daybreakers” are to set to go behind the camera for “The Power Of The Dark Crystal.” And — sit down for this — it will be in 3-D. Shocker.
Just a couple of months ago production designer Brian Froud revealed that the project was still “inching” towards production and that he had been been designing for the forthcoming film and talking with the formerly attached director Genndy Tartakovsky. While Froud is still on board, Tartakovsky (a fan favorite for the director’s chair) has been given the boot. The film will use a script by Craig Pearce (“Moulin Rouge,” “Strictly Ballroom”).
This writer isn’t too invested in this franchise, but after having sat through the near trainwreck of “Daybreakers,” can’t imagine a worst choice for the director’s seat for this film. Unleashing two directors who didn’t know what to do with low-budget effects, on a bigger budget film that will utilize CGI seems like a disaster waiting to happen. The set pieces in “Daybreakers” were forgettable and directed with barren, boring ideas for camera placement and plain imagination, so we’re not sure what the Spierigs are bringing to the table here.
Whatever it is, they’ve seemingly cracked the long developing project. The sequel will be set “hundreds of years after the events of the first movie when the world has once again fallen into darkness and “follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, together with a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the legendary Crystal in an attempt to reignite the dying sun that exists at the center of the planet.”
No word yet on when this is going in front of cameras, but we’re guessing it’ll be prepped for a late 2011/early 2012 release.
–Written by Kevin Jagernauth