Disney and The Jim Henson Company are teaming up to bring Jim Henson‘s incredible life to the big screen. The Jim Henson biopic Muppet Man is currently in development at Disney, with The Current War writer Michael Mitnick set to pen the story of the legendary puppeteer.
Deadline reports that Michael Mitnick (The Current War, The Giver) has been set to write the Jim Henson biopic Muppet Man, rewriting a previous version of a script by Adrift scribes Aaron and Jordan Kandell. Henson’s daughter Lisa Henson, who is currently in production on Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Pinocchio for Netflix, is producing for The Jim Henson Company.
Muppet Man is currently in development at Disney, and will “chart the life and times of the legendary puppeteer, creator of The Muppets, Fraggle Rock and many of the Sesame Street characters, as well as director of cult films such as Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.” The film will specifically focus on “Henson’s journey to convince broadcasters that The Muppets was a great idea and how he worked to get the characters on air where they became a comedy staple.”
Mitnick certainly has experience in writing biopics about complicated figures, penning the historical drama The Current War, which followed the electric feud between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, and starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon. Mitnick also wrote for HBO’s Vinyl, which chronicled the changing music scene of the ’70s.
With the Muppets back in the public consciousness thanks to the arrival of several beloved Muppets properties on Disney+, there probably isn’t a better time for a Jim Henson biopic (although ideally, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance would also be thriving, but we can’t have it all). Disney, which has owned the rights to the Muppets characters since the ’90s, released the Disney+ series Muppets Now last year and the classic The Muppets Show recently hit the streaming platform.
There have been several attempts by the Henson Company, which owns Henson’s life rights, to develop a Jim Henson biopic. More than a decade ago, The Henson Company acquired Christopher Weekes’ Black List-topping script — also called Muppet Man — about the puppeteer, and even had started eying filmmakers like Michael Gracey to direct. It was described as a gritty and innovative take on Henson’s life, though the Henson Company couldn’t get it off the ground without brokering a deal with Disney. And now, here we are.
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