When you're writing a script called The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made, you're setting the bar awfully high, and when Get Him to the Greek director Nicholas Stoller began work on the upcoming Muppet reboot with cowriter Jason Segel (star of the Stoller-helmed Forgetting Sarah Marshall), he admits that he started freaking out.
"I mean, the first time I wrote the character of Kermit, I got chills. I couldn't believe I got to write for Kermit," Stoller told Movieline. "He has kind of a sly comedic sensibility in the original movie that we're trying to recapture for this one, so he's obviously awesome to write for."
Not so easy to write for? His favorite character Beaker -- "He doesn't really say anything" -- or Fozzie Bear, "because he has to tell a lot of Catskills-style jokes, and those are hard to think of," Stoller laughed. "When you do think of those jokes, even though they're terrible, you feel really proud of yourself for five minutes."
Stoller's a busy man right now: not only is he revising the latest draft of the Muppet movie (set to go before cameras soon for director James Bobin), he's promoting the DVD/Blu-ray release of Greek (out September 28), prepping his next directorial effort, a reteaming with Segel called The Five-Year Engagement, and gearing up for the winter release of Gulliver's Travels, which he cowrote.
Still, even a packed schedule like that one allows a few moments of ecstasy, as when Stoller recently got to see the design for a brand-new, super-secret Muppet he created for Bobin's film.
"It's pretty cute," he enthused, before going tight-lipped about exactly what the new creature will be. "Jason Segel is going to be in the movie, obviously, and he and this new Muppet are best friends. I don't think I'm supposed to say that much about it, but I can say that."
Stoller was much more forthcoming about the extra-stuffed home video release of Greek, which boasts countless deleted scenes and alternate takes from stars Russell Brand and Jonah Hill, and also contains an unrated extended cut. Still, Stoller admitted that he didn't mind cutting all those things out of the theatrical edition of the film.
"I'm really not precious about it -- I always want it to be shorter and shorter," he said. "I prefer the theatrical cut, but I will say that on the extended version, there's a montage that's hilarious that I really wanted to put in the movie but couldn't figure out. It's a coke-fueled jogging montage, and it's pretty hilarious and weird, but it was just one too many drug montages."
Once his Greek promotional duties conclude and he finally turns in the last draft of Muppet Movie, Stoller hopes to make Five-Year Engagement his next film. It's the story of a long-engaged couple (played by Segel and an actress yet to be cast) who can't quite pull the trigger on actual marriage, and Stoller said it's much more true to life than most Hollywood romcoms.
"I mean, romantic comedy is my favorite genre -- like, a good romantic comedy can be more satisfying than any movie -- but most romantic comedies aren't that great because they try to keep couples apart by creating a lot of artificial obstacles," he said.
"It's better to get rid of that and create real obstacles -- like in Sarah Marshall, when you break up with your ex-girlfriend and then your ex-girlfriend comes back to you, nine times out of ten you hook up with her. That's a real obstacle versus some sort of fake misunderstanding."
Stoller himself has no shortage of romantic obstacles to sort out, as he revealed when he recently tweeted, "Does the fact that Marion Cotillard is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist make her less hot or even hotter?" I had to ask whether he had finally come to a conclusion on the matter.
"I land on 'hotter,'" he laughed. I thought about it and debated it -- and I'm Jewish and obviously American, so I felt bad about it -- but I can't deny it, it just makes her hotter. And most people I ask that to agree!"