Executive producers Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone are teaming up with writer Cole Escola to develop the first-ever solo movie set in the world of The Muppets: Miss Piggy. The beloved diva, portrayed most regularly in 2002 by Eric Jacobson, was first introduced to audiences in 1976 on The Muppet Show, and became an immediate fan favorite.
Originally puppeteered by Frank Oz, Piggy is, in some ways, one of the longest-lasting and most beloved drag acts in show business, as Jacobson told Variety in 2014.
“I don’t know if I can announce this, but I’m just going to,” Lawrence said on Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’ Las Culturistas podcast (via Deadline). “Emma Stone and I are producing a Miss Piggy movie and Cole is writing it.”
Escola, best known for Oh, Mary!, has also worked on shows like Big Mouth and Frog and Toad in recent years.
Lawrence suggested that she and Stone would likely appear in the film.
Disney acquired the rights to The Muppets characters from the estate of creator Jim Henson in 2004, although Henson himself was trying to close a similar deal before his death in 1990. During his life, Henson felt that Disney was a great home for The Muppets because they could help keep the property commercially viable and in the public eye after he was gone.
Since then, Disney have struggled to figure out what to do with The Muppets; a successful feature film outing in 2011 was followed by a far less successful sequel three years later, and the property hasn’t returned to theaters since. On TV, Disney have tried a number of short-lived TV series, with the only real hit being a revival of Muppet Babies. A recent feature film, Muppets Haunted Mansion, drew a positive response when it aired on Disney+, but didn’t seem to make a cultural impact beyond existing Muppets (or Disney Parks) fans.
Recently, rumors emerged that Disney was exploring a revival of The Muppet Show, which would come back as a movie on Disney+ that would double as a backdoor pilot for a series. At one point in its original run, The Muppet Show was the most-watched TV series on the air, and marked the first American TV show to be legally simulcast in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Its variety show format played to the characters’ strengths, required almost no prior knowledge of characters or storylines to jump into an episode, and meant that bursting into song or randomly dropping in a celebrity guest was a totally acceptable thing to do.
The Muppet Show reboot will be produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and Sabrina Carpenter will guest star in the backdoor pilot. A prior high-profile attempt at a Muppets revival, Josh Gad‘s Muppets Live Another Day, was cancelled during pre-production in 2019.
