Vulture is reporting that the director of The Muppets, James Bobin, and the co-writer of the film, Nicholas Stoller, have been signed to contracts that will have them writing a sequel to the film, presumably with the intent to further spread its liberal, anti-capitalism propaganda. No more details on its plot are available, although it's probably safe to assume that Bobin will return to direct the sequel, as well. The Muppets wasn't any kind of huge success at the box office, topping off at around $150 million worldwide (by comparison, the god-awful Smurfs movie made $560 million), but presumably it was profitable enough to give Disney the impetus to move forward with another one. It helps when Kermit doesn't have to get paid.
Unfortunately, it looks like Jason Segel won't be back to write the second film; Vulture says that this is due to his other work commitments, as he has a few movies coming out this year (including Five-Year Engagement and Jeff, Who Lives At Home), as well as his work on How I Met Your Mother. Still, it's difficult to see why he wouldn't make time to pitch in on the script for this, considering it was largely his and Stoller's passion to see a new Muppets movie that got the film off the ground. Maybe he's sure it's in good hands?
Apparently Segel might come back to actually star in the presumed sequel, if he likes the script, and it'd be hard not to imagine that he'd make up whatever he wants to say on set anyway if that transpires. We'll know sometime next year, I'd imagine, assuming that everyone can fit the project into their busy schedules. Really, I just want to know if Bret McKenzie will be coming back; the movie worked because it had a great script, obviously, but the songs were really outrageously amazing. You have to figure that they'll try to bring him back sometime later in the process, but that Oscar's going to increase his asking price. I could give or take more Amy Adams, though.
