First up, Christoph Waltz has signed on to join The Muppets as they reprise their successful return to the big screen with a sequel to 2011’s THE MUPPETS. The first movie was loads of fun, and you could see the passion and love of Jason Segal for the property veritably bursting out of every puppet seam and film frame. A sequel is now on the way, though without Segal’s writing involvement or his character of Gary. “We kind of felt like we completed Gary’s story in the first one,” said co-writer Nicholas Stoller, “and he’s mostly interested in writing stuff for him to be in, which makes sense, right? He didn’t want to go on and write the next one. I was like, ‘Do you care if I do it with James [Bobin, director]?’ He’s like, ‘Of course not.'”
Waltz will, in a curious turn that only further throws wide open the doors of possible sequel direction, be playing an Interpol agent in the sequel. Word is that Disney hopes to release the movie sometime in 2013.
On the other side of the spectrum we have the strange and thrilling psychological thriller YOU BELONG TO ME to look forward to – Harrison Ford and Zac Efron on the verge of signing on to the story of “a psychiatrist struggling with the recent suicide of a patient. He bonds with the patient’s brother (Efron), but learns to regret that bond when the young man begins seducing the psychiatrist’s wife and daughter.” The project will be produced by Matt Damon and directed by Rob Reiner (THE PRINCESS BRIDE), who hasn’t attempted something in this tone or style since his 1990 Stephen King adaptation MISERY. While I’m hardly enthused by the presence of Efron I’ll nonetheless be fascinated to see Ford work with this sort of story, as he seems to be going through something of a career renaissance of late and the material is so darkly different from the majority of what he has worked on over the years.
YOU BELONG TO ME is currently penciled in for a March 2013 start.