(Left) Director Robert Eggers on the set of his film ‘Nosferatu’, a Focus Features release. (Right) David Bowie as Jareth in ‘Labyrinth.’ Photo: The Jim Henson Company. Copyright: Labyrinth Enterprises.
Preview:
Robert Eggers is reportedly to make a new ‘Labyrinth’ movie.
The likes of Scott Derrickson and Fede Álvarez have been attached in the past.
The 1986 original starred Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie.
Writer/director Robert Eggers has his most recent stab at celluloid fear, ‘Nosferatu’ on screens at the moment. The movie, a new version of what was a bootleg take on ‘Dracula’ features some truly creepy character work and both psychological and physical horror.
Given that, and his history with movies such as ‘The Witch,’ ‘The Northman’ and ‘The Lighthouse,’ he might not appear to be the first person you’d think to tackling a remake of a film originally brought to screens by Muppet maestro Jim Henson, which for all its scarier themes, is mostly a family fantasy adventure.
(L to R) David Bowie as Jareth and Jennifer Connelly as Sarah in ‘Labyrinth.’ Photo: The Jim Henson Company. Copyright: Labyrinth Enterprises.
The original movie was directed by Henson and naturally features a fair amount of fresh felt creations from his workshop.
Jennifer Connelly stars as Sarah Williams, a teenager forced by her father and stepmother to babysit her baby stepbrother, Toby, while they are out.
The child will not stop crying, and Sarah wishes that he would be taken away. Out of the blue, he stops crying and when she looks for him in his crib, she learns that her wish was granted, and the Goblin King Jareth (David Bowie) has taken him to his castle in the Goblin City in the middle of a labyrinth. Sarah repents and asks Jareth to give him back, but Jareth tells her that she has to rescue him before midnight.
Sarah finds some willing allies, but the question remains… Will they rescue Toby in time?
Henson came up with the original story alongside Dennis Lee, and script duties were handed over to Monty Python member Terry Jones (with Elaine May contributing an uncredited polish to boost the characters and humor of Sarah and Jareth).
Eggers considering the new movie might not be as strange as it sounds, as Sony and the Jim Henson Company (run by Henson’s daughter, Lisa) has had horror filmmakers attached in the past.
There have been loose plans to make a new ‘Labyrinth’ film for several years, though a direct sequel would certainly seem to be a tough ask given the death of Bowie in 2016. The challenge of finding someone who could channel his unique energy is surely a huge one.
At one point, ‘Alien: Romulus’ filmmaker Fede Álvarez was planning to direct before he announced in 2020 that he had stepped down. At the time, it was reported that the project was still moving forward with ‘Doctor Strange’ and ‘The Black Phone’ director Scott Derrickson taking over at the helm.
Yet Derrickson revealed last year that his version had stalled at the script stage. Here’s what he told Comicbook.com:
“I don’t know what’s happening with that. We never got the script all the way to a place where the studio wanted to make it, but I was very proud of the work that we did on it. And it’s a hard, hard project to turn into something commercially viable, because it’s so imaginative and surreal that there’s no way that it can be done cheaply. And at the same time, it’s so daring and different that it is a tough movie for a studio to feel competent that it has enough commercial value to earn a profit. So I think that it’s a tough nut to crack, but all I can tell you is I’m very proud of the work that we did on it. We certainly had a great film in mind. Because the project is still in development, I probably shouldn’t say… I think we had a really cool idea, but I don’t want to blow that in case the movie does get made.”
While the issue of Bowie remains up in the air, Connelly has said that she at least had conversations about returning, though she admitted to Collider that she wasn’t sure where the movie was going to land.
“That’s a question you have to ask my sister. My sister Lisa, who’s CEO of the Jim Henson Company. That is a project that we are very excited about, but we can’t talk about it.”
Nothing official has yet been said about Eggers’ involvement, nor whether he’ll look to make a legacy sequel or re-imagine the original (as he has with his atmospheric ‘Nosferatu’), but we’d certainly be intrigued to see what might result. Does anyone have a set of juggling crystal balls we can use to get a glimpse?
When will then new ‘Labyrinth’ be in theaters?
‘Labyrinth’ is available for purchase or to rent on digital beginning February 6th.
With the film still seemingly stuck in development limbo, we’re not even going to guess at this point when it might head to theaters.
But if Eggers can actually make it happen, then it has a stronger chance than ever of actually getting to screens.
(L to R) Brian Henson as Hoggle and Jennifer Connelly as Sarah in ‘Labyrinth.’ Photo: The Jim Henson Company. Copyright: Labyrinth Enterprises.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jim Henson’s son, Chairman of The Jim Henson Company and the voice of Hoggle, Brian Henson. He talked about his work on ‘Labyrinth,’ developing the project, why his father wanted to make the movie, casting David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, voicing Hoggle, the legacy of the film and the long-rumored sequel.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interview.
Brian Henson on the set of ‘Labyrinth.’ Photo: The Jim Henson Company. Copyright: Labyrinth Enterprises.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about the development of this movie, why your father was so passionate about making it, and the themes that he was excited to explore?
Brian Henson: I was largely in school. My job was training puppeteers, being the puppeteer captain, directing background action and performing Hoggle, so development I was aware of, but not intimately involved in. But I certainly know that he did ‘The Dark Crystal’ and although people love the movie and critics love the movie, there was generally a feeling of, “We kind of missed that Henson irreverence. We kind of missed having guest stars and celebrity mixed in. We kind of missed the music and we kind of missed some of the comedy.” So, my dad was trying to find the right project that was still fantasy because he loved what he was doing in ‘Dark Crystal,’ but a world and a story that could bring back in music, comedy and irreverence as well as all that stuff. So that was his thinking. Then the whole thing with a baby and losing a baby, I know that in the movie he does credit Maurice Sendak as one of his main inspirations for the movie, and you saw a lot of that in Maurice Sendak’s work. It was in his illustrated novels. There was a lot of babies in precarious situations, completely ignorant of the danger that they were in, and that tickled my dad. I mean, it’s a dark sense of humor, but there was a lot of that. Then my dad had three daughters and was very aware of that point in time, and I think that was very intriguing to him. I mean, the coming of age of a boy story we’ve seen done many times, but it’s a very different journey to a girl becoming a woman, and all the dangers that comes with that. I think that intrigued him a lot as a parent. Then the other thing is I’m sure that with five kids in the family, he must have heard, “That’s not fair,” so many times that I think the theme of, “It’s not fair,” was important to him. Life is not always fair because in ‘Labyrinth,’ Sarah’s constantly going, “It’s not fair. I did the right thing, and this is not fair.” Sometimes things aren’t fair, and you just must know if you’re right and if you’re a good person, then you must just keep trying. You just must keep trying.
David Bowie as Jareth in ‘Labyrinth.’ Photo: The Jim Henson Company. Copyright: Labyrinth Enterprises.
MF: Can you talk about casting David Bowie and his contributions to the film’s music?
BH: I think my dad and David, that was a good combination. I know he was considering a few names. I was probably 21 when he was in that casting process. ‘Modern Love’ had only come out a couple of years earlier. I thought David Bowie was the greatest thing on the planet. I thought he was so much more. He was like a demigod to me. I thought he was really something special. So, I was super excited that he was casting David, and I think the two of them got along. I mean, other choices that he was thinking of had a similar work ethic, but David was a workaholic, and a wildly prolific creator just like my dad. So, they were both these wildly prolific artists, and I think that made it very easy for them to work together. I remember when my dad got the first recordings from David. He was used to working with songwriters who were writing songs for movies, where when you got the first recordings it was just a piano and a vocal. That’s usually what you heard but David brought in fully produced tracks with the Harlem choir singing in the background. I remember it was extraordinary. The music was great, but I think my dad would give David just a little bit of guidance, but really let David write the songs. They were his songs.
Jennifer Connelly as Sarah in ‘Labyrinth.’ Photo: The Jim Henson Company. Copyright: Labyrinth Enterprises.
MF: Can you also talk about the casting of a young Jennifer Connelly as Sarah?
BH: Well, with Jennifer, my dad was casting for the character of Sarah. I mean, they saw a lot of actresses. I was the puppeteer for Sir Didymus for a call back for screen testing a short list. So, I was involved in screen testing probably 10 actresses. My dad was directing, and then ultimately my dad decided on Jennifer. He liked her the most and she did a fantastic job, but it was really a wide casting call. I know there were a few actresses that age that were famous at the time, they were all also interested. So that was Jennifer. She had to get through all the levels of callbacks and screen tests and all that, and just did a wonderful job.
(L to R) Director Jim Henson and Brian Henson as Hoggle on the set of ‘Labyrinth.’ Photo: The Jim Henson Company. Copyright: Labyrinth Enterprises.
MF: How did you end up playing Hoggle and can you talk about creating the voice for the character?
BH: (My dad) wanted me to try with Hoggle because I was the lead puppeteer, so Shari (Weiser) is inside the costume and she’s doing the body, she’s inside. Then me plus three other puppeteers were doing the face. I was doing the mouth. So, I had to voice it because I was working the mouth. Initially my dad wanted to try it with another actor, a cockney comedic actor, a British actor, who was older, and a very funny guy, to see if I could lip-sync while he was talking. But he had such a quirky timing, and he was so unpredictable, it was just impossible to keep up with him. He’d start talking before I was ready. We tried for only a day, and it was clear to my dad, he was like, “This is never going to happen.” So, he said to me, “I don’t know who the voice will be. It may be that actor, but it might be another actor. I’m just going to leave that. So why don’t you do Hoggle, but I’m going to replace your voice.” Puppeteering is more than a technical skill. Obviously, you’re delivering a performance, an emotional performance, but I never thought it would be me. First, I was terrified of doing a Dick Van Dyke (from ‘Marry Poppins’) and just doing a terrible British accent. I just made it kind of British, but also just kind of weird. I just slipped into this character. Then, because Shari couldn’t see unless the mouth was open, if the mouth wasn’t open, Hoggle would walk into a tree. So, then I had to come up with all these reasons to open the mouth. So, whenever he’s walking, he’s always saying, “Go, get out of the way.” He’s just always grumbling and mumbling to himself, literally as an excuse to keep opening the mouth so that Shari could see where the person was that Hoggle was talking to, or where the tree was that she would trip. That’s the way that developed. Then at the end, my dad said, “You know what? Your voice has kind of grown on me, so I think we’re just going to keep it.” I was like, “Okay, great.”
(L to R) David Bowie as Jareth and Jennifer Connelly as Sarah in ‘Labyrinth.’ Photo: The Jim Henson Company. Copyright: Labyrinth Enterprises.
MF: Can you talk about the legacy of the movie and why it’s still popular to this day?
BH: I think that the legacy, the film just gets more and more popular. That’s one thing that’s wonderful about it. That’s one of the great things about fantasy in general, because even science fiction can date itself because its often science concepts that then actually have happened, but they didn’t happen anything like what you thought they were going to look like. With fantasy, it never really dates itself. Now, certainly if you look at ‘Labyrinth’ or ‘The Dark Crystal,’ you would say that’s a retro film art form. When we were doing these animatronic characters at the time, I think we genuinely believed that the audience would really believe that they were living creatures. Now, the sophisticated audience today that’s used to seeing sophisticated effects will look at what we were doing in ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Dark Crystal’ and go, well, they’re puppets. They’re just good puppets. They’re cool puppets, but they’re puppets. The legacy of that is that the audience can really appreciate the artistry, I think. So, when you watch these films, particularly these big fantasy films from the ’80s, the artistry is so clear that as an audience member, you can really appreciate all those creative people, that army of creative people and what they did. Whereas if you watch a big Marvel film, it may have the same size army of artists working, but it’s just kind of hard to see what they were doing. Whereas when you watch these fantasy films from the ’80s, you see the sculpting, the conceptualizing, the painting and the fabric work, and you can really see all the artistry. So that can be very inspiring, I think, to a modern audience.
MF: Finally, what is the status of the long-rumored sequel?
BH: As for a sequel, I’m not allowed to say anything. I can say it’s still active. We are still very invested in it and are very excited about it. But I can’t say anything more about it.
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What is the Plot of ‘Labyrinth’?
When teen Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) is forced to babysit her half-brother Toby (Toby Froud) she summons Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie) to take him away. When he is kidnapped Sarah is given just thirteen hours to solve a labyrinth and rescue him.
Christmas is a time for gifts and also for watching ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’, which originally hit theaters in 1992 and starred Michael Caine as Ebeneezer Scrooge, alongside a smattering of other human actors and most of the key roles played by Kermit and the gang.
It has long since become an annual holiday favorite for many people, as much a part of Christmas tradition as turkey, trees and traumatic shopping experiences.
But for almost as many years, Muppet fans have been wondering when they might see missing song ‘When Love is Gone’ re-integrated back into the movie itself after so much time spent as a poor-quality deleted scene on home entertainment releases and as an extra on the Disney+ version.
It’s always seemed a surprising decision, since the song is a key emotional moment from Scrooge’s past and his heartbreaking decision to eschew true love Belle (Meredith Braun) for his pursuit of financial gain. The melody of the Paul Williams-penned song plays into Miles Goodman’s score and the final song ‘When Love is Found’ directly references it.
There is good news, then, for those that have loved the take on Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic tale of ghosts and redemption. As revealed during a 30-year retrospective panel for the movie at this year’s D23 Expo, the full movie will finally be available to watch for the first time.
Director Brian Henson told the D23 panel audience the story of how then-Disney boss Jeff Katzenberg demanded that the song be edited out of the movie after a test screening where he noticed that kids were getting restless through the mournful (yet also quite lovely) ballad.
Henson negotiated a deal: the song would be removed for the theatrical release but restored for home entertainment. Yet when the time rolled around for that, a proper negative couldn’t be found.
Despite a years-long search, nothing was turned up, at least until just recently, when a print containing the song was discovered, meaning that the full version could be made ready in 4K format for Disney+.
It’ll premiere on the streaming service on December 11th, though we’re still waiting to lean if it’ll become the main version of the movie or become part of the extras.
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In related Muppets news, there was also an announcement about a new recording of a classic track from band The Electric Mayhem. With the group preparing to hit Disney+ next year with ‘The Muppets Mayhem’, they’ve released an updated version of “Can You Picture That?”, originally performed in 1979’s ‘The Muppet Movie’.
The new series follows The Electric Mayhem on their journey to record their first ever studio album. The old-school band is helped along the way by Lily Singh’s Nora, a young music executive with her finger on the pulse of the current music scene. Also starring in the series are Tajh Mowry, Saara Chaudry, and Anders Holm.
