Yesterday evening we gave you details on the new Muppets movie, via one of the more recent screenplay versions, now titling the film, “The Greatest Muppet Movie of All Time.” It’s essentially about a couple and a new puppet (Gary, Mary, and Walter) getting the retired Muppet gang together to try save the TV studio where the original “The Muppets” show was shot and thwarting the rich Texas millionaire trying to destroy it so he can dig for oil.
But we didn’t have our hands on the script until now. A reader tipped us to the fact there are myriad cameos, someone finally passed along the screenplay, we breezed through it this morning and it’s true. Folks like George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Chris Rock, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Mel Brooks, Matt Damon, Norah Jones, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ben Stiller are written into the script very, very briefly.
Most of these stars appear for a quick second, and most appear at the end to support the Muppets show (or appear turning down the offer to appear on the show earlier on).
Cameos written into a script are fun, but don’t get too excited, they might not necessarily happen. Writers Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller obviously shot for the moon, but who knows if these stars are available. Though Muppets are well beloved, so who’s going to turn them down? And there’s got to be a ton of nostalgia for characters that haven’t been on the screen or TV in over a decade at least (or it sure feels that way). But cameos written into script just often don’t happen and or they’re substitute for whoever’s around and willing. See Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” that wrote in a cameo for Bruce Springsteen, but at the end of the day, the scene was totally reimagined, recontextualized (originally it was a dream) and ultimately Eminem appeared in the film. At least the Young MC cameo written into “Up In The Air” still happened, so we suppose there’s still hope. We bet cameos will happen in the film in the end, but whether its the aforementioned stars, who knows.
James Bobin (“Flight of the Conchords”) is officially attached to director this new Disney Muppet movie. The tentative plan so far is to shoot the film this summer.