News about Jason Segal’s planned Muppet Movie has been hitting the `net this week. I’m told that the working title for the film is The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever and AICN has (spoiler alert) posted the first review of the new Muppet Movie’s script. For those who don’t want to read too many details of the film’s plot, visit Tough Pigs for a spoiler free review of the script.

Sorry it’s been so long since my last update…the hotly anticipated trailer for Where The Wild Things Are (see previous post) has finally hit the web and wow. I can’t wait to see this. You can check it out on YouTube, or in high definition at Apple.com.

27/3/09 Update: Sayraphim Lothian shares an account of her work as a refurbishment technician maintaining the the monster suits on movie’s set in her blog (link via Puppeteers Unite).

Neko Rahmen is a popular Japanese anime series and manga about a cat named Taishou who runs a ramen shop. It’s being adapted in to a Japanese feature film with Taishou being realized as a puppet. If you check out the trailer for Neko Rahmen Taisho you’ll see that it looks kind of stupid, but also kind of awesome.

I want to see this.

The film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are (see previous post) has been hotly anticipated for a long time. The film’s original teaser was released back in 2000 and the movie’s troubled production history has been widely reported. Now as the Wild Things prepare to finally move to the big screen we get our first complete look at the movie’s creatures.

While doing promotion for the new Hellboy II Blu-Ray, director Guillermo del Toro provided some minor updates on his upcoming two-part adaptation of The Hobbit. He reports that filming will commence in 2010 and last an entire year. del Toro – who’s well-known for his love of practical effects like animatronics and puppetry – also says he’s planning to break new ground in puppetry:

“We will be pushing them to the edge of technology where we will fuse animatronics and CGI into a seamless new art form in creating creatures.” While Hellboy II had a lot of recognizable puppets, del Toro says that The Hobbit will feature more of a seamless mix. “You will see some mind-boggling mixture of CGI / puppetry like never before. “

You can read the full report here.

There’s been a lot of online nervousness and speculation about Spike Jonze’s feature film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are (see previous post). Very little information and even fewer images from the film have been released (click here for one Kanye West accidentally posted to his blog earlier this year), but AICN’s “Moriarty” has seen a rough cut of the film and sat down for a wide-ranging, unfettered interview about it with director Spike Jonze.

What I found especially interesting in the interview was reading about the approach that’s being used to realize the Wild Things onscreen. Jonze insisted on making the movie as real as possible and filmed most of it on location in Australia using performers in body suits (made by the Creature Shop) with non-articulated faces, which will be animated in post production. Very little of the film has been actually finished yet, but Moriarty has nothing but good things to say about the work-in-progress.

Where the Wild Things Are is scheduled to be released late next year.

Via I Watch Stuff.

Dante’s Inferno (see previous post) – the feature-length Toy Theatre film from a team that includes Paul Zaloom is now available to order on DVD. While it’s the type of indie film that’s probably not for everyone, I had a chance to catch this at last year’s Puppeteers of America festival and really enjoyed it. It’s available to order online for just $13.99 at www.dantefilm.com.

Remember Cats and Dogs?

I’ve always thought it was a great little family film and its villain Mr. Tinkles has to be one of the funniest animatronic puppet characters ever created. Recently word has been spreading that a sequel called Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore is headed in to production. I was excited to hear that Brad Peyton (see previous post) is helming the sequel. Also good to hear is that Dave Barclay is once again supervising the animatronic characters for the film, although this time they’ll be built by Lee Romaire Studios.

I’m not sure whether the sequel is intended to be a big budget theatrical film or not; evidence suggests that the producers might be cutting some corners (note: this is not the case, see my note below), when you consider they’re hiring a relatively inexperienced (albeit very talented) director and have decided to forgo rehiring the Creature Shop, which created the animatronic characters for the original. However, Brad Peyton is has a really distinct vision (his short film Evelyn the Cutest Evil Dead Girl is fantastic), Dave Barclay is one of the best animatronic puppeteers in the world and Lee Romaire’s studio is able to do really interesting work even with a limited budget (see previous post). Add all those elements together and this low-profile film has the potential to be something special.

Hopefully we’ll hear more about Cats and Dogs 2 as it moves through production.

15/10/08 Update: After posting this, I got an email from someone who is actually working on the film in Vancouver who assures me the budget for this is actually quite a bit bigger than the original and it’s being planned as major release for next year.

The inaugural Santa Monica Puppetry Festival kicked off today in Santa Monica, California and runs through Sunday. The festival is paying tribute to actress Leslie Caron and 1953 MGM puppet-themed musical Lili (better known as Carnival – the title of the film’s stage adaptation) with a special screening of the movie followed by a discussion with Ms. Caron moderated by film historian Leonard Maltin.

Leslie Caron will also be leading an audience sing-along of the Academy Award-winning song “Hi Lili, Hi Lo” from Lili as part of the festival’s Celebration of Puppetry. Also appearing on the bill is Mallory Lewis (who has taken over the role of Lambchop from her late mother Shari) and three legendary marionette puppeteers – Bob Baker, Tony Urbano and Rene Zendejas.

A Celebration of Puppetry Takes Place Saturday night 7:30 p.m.; the special screening of Lili is Sunday evening at the same time. Both events take place at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Visit www.santamonicapuppetryfestival.com for more details.

Update: Check out this classic interview with the puppets from Lili with a young Alan Cook on YouTube. In it Alan briefly explains some of the history behind the Lili puppets and their original puppeteers.

I’m still playing catch up with stuff since I was MIA here for awhile last month, but one of the (many) things I’ve been wanting to mention – and looking forward to watching – is Oranges: Revenge of the Eggplant. It’s the latest in a series of “Oranges movies” that began as a high school art class project by Rich Evans and Mike Stoklasa. The film tells “the harrowing tale of Professor Charles Sunkyst and his fateful encounter with the diabolical Dr. Eggplant.”

I haven’t seen it yet (only the trailer) but it looks like it’s a fun little indie movie that Rich and Mike have obviously poured a lot of time and energy in to. There are a couple of great, tongue-in-cheek videos on YouTube explaining how they built their elaborate sets on the cheap; visit the Red Letter Media YouTube Channel for those and bunch and of other Oranges videos. If you like what you see consider why not buy Oranges: Revenge of the Eggplant on DVD?

Via Tom’s always-interesting Puppeteers Unite Blog.