Christmas is just around the corner, and you’re probably catching up on some old and new favorite films about the holidays. Among your viewings of A Christmas Story, Die Hard, and Gremlins, maybe you picked up a copy of The Muppet Christmas Carol, which has recently had a 20th anniversary Blu-ray release. This repackaging of the 1992 holiday classic includes a commentary track by Brian Henson as well as a new commentary by the Muppet characters themselves. One is more technical, and the other is more silly, but together they give a nice look at the making of one of the more faithful-yet-original adaptations of the Charles Dickens book. And on to the commentary…

Now that Halloween is over, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner, it’s time to start getting into the Christmas cheer. You might think it’s a little too early for this, but Wal-Mart has had its Christmas decorations up for a month now, and movie studios are following suit. As they do every year, studios are dropping their Christmas films this week to get a jump on the holiday spending spree. Here at Film School Rejects, we have a special place in our hearts for the Muppets, and there’s also quite a bit of love for the 1992 film The Muppet Christmas Carol, which is getting a Blu-ray release for the first time this week. So forget the fact that Thanksgiving is more than two weeks away. Check out this holiday favorite early and avoid the Christmas rush.

Way back in 2008, the Jim Henson Co. picked up a spec script from Todd Berger that took a standard Muppet trope (a world where people and puppets co-exist and no one thinks it’s weird), turned it on its head (the puppets are treated like second-class citizens), then splashed blood all over that turned head (the puppet stars of a cancelled kids television show start to get killed off), and then threw in some classic crime noir (“a disgraced detective-turned-private eye puppet takes on the case”). But since that first bit of news about The Happytime Murders, information has been relatively soft (as felt), until today’s brief that IM Global is taking the film (with attached director Brian Henson) to the Berlin International Film Festival next week in hopes of selling it. While that’s certainly good news, it does come with a caveat – as Deadline Rotterdam claims that “Kathryn Heigl is in advanced negotiations to star,” but maybe there’s some other actress out there named Kathryn Heigl that is an up-and-comer who is super into puppets…or maybe that’s just another one of those little Deadline mistakes that will get corrected without a word later today. Fine, it’s Katherine Heigl who might star in The Happytime Murders, and even if she’s going to be portrayed as a puppet, that’s just unsuitable casting.

The legend of Jim Henson will come to life on the big screen. Most likely it will involve the use of puppets.