Jason Segel will now star as the human lead in James Bobin’s new Muppets movie which Segel scribed along with Nicholas Stoller.
The casting makes perfect sense and it frankly would have been odd to see someone else step into the role. Segel’s puppet performance in Stoller’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” was the catalyst for the project, with the two masterminding its conception and development.
As we previously revealed, “The Greatest Muppet Movie of All Time” as its now known, centers on a man, his girlfriend, and the man’s life-long nondescript, brown puppet best friend who aim to reunite the old Muppets gang and band together to save the TV studio that the original show was shot in. The studio is being taken over by antagonist Tex Richman, who is hell bent on drilling for oil underneath the studio. The Muppets only hope to stop him is to put on a show that draws ten million viewers.
The film will potentially be a cameo-heavy affair with scripted brief appearances form the likes of George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Chris Rock, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Mel Brooks, Matt Damon, Norah Jones, Sarah Jessica Parker and Ben Stiller. Obviously, things don’t always turn out as planned so don’t be surprised when only half of these actors eventually turn up.
Segel also previously revealed that he “told all of my friends that I’ve written parts for them” so we can probably expect many of the Apatow crowd and actors from “How I Met Your Mother” to show up as well, right?
Shooting is slated to begin this summer, though we’re not sure how it will sync up with Segel’s other projects including Jake Kasdan’s “Bad Teacher” which shoots next month and the Duplass Brothers’ “Jeff Who Lives At Home” which is also ready to go.