In Full Moon's PUPPET MASTER series, the creator of the puppets was Andre Toulon, a good man who used his living puppets to preserve the souls of his loved ones and to fight back against the Nazis during World War II. The upcoming reboot PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH, which was scripted by BONE TOMAHAWK's S. Craig Zahler, features Udo Kier as a very different Andre Toulon (in what's said to be a "glorified cameo"); a Toulon who was a Nazi himself and used his living puppets to commit hate crimes.
Directed by Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund, PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH stars Thomas Lennon as
a recently divorced young man who discovers a mint condition Blade doll in his deceased brother’s closet and plans to sell the toy at a convention in Oregon celebrating the 30th anniversary of the infamous Toulon Murders. All hell breaks loose at the Postville Lodge during the auction when a strange force animates all of the various puppets throughout the convention as they go on a bloody killing spree.
Lennon and Kier are joined in the cast by Michael Paré, Jenny Pellicer, Nelson Franklin, Alex Beh, Tina Parker, Skeeta Jenkins, Charlyne Yi, and Barbara Crampton.
While most of us will have to wait until August to see THE LITTLEST REICH when RLJE Films gives it an unrated theatrical release (under the newly revived Fangoria banner), the reboot is currently making the festival rounds and has already been seen by attendees of the Overlook Film Festival and the Dallas International Film Festival… and a couple reactions to come out of the Dallas screening have included news on the PUPPET MASTER franchise's future.
According to these reports, it was mentioned during a Q&A after the Dallas screening that Zahler will be writing a prequel to THE LITTLEST REICH that has the working title PUPPET MASTER: ARYANS AHOY!
If the follow-up is a prequel with that title, it seems pretty safe to assume we'll be seeing a whole lot more of Kier's Toulon in that film.
If you don't like the idea of an evil Toulon, no worries: Full Moon founder Charles Band, who served as an executive producer on the reboot, still intends to continue the original PUPPET MASTER continuity with his own films while reboot producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian, Dallas Sonnier, and Jack Heller continue their branch of the franchise.
We'll keep you updated on everything that's going on in the PUPPET MASTER world as more information is made available.