Movies That Make Us

Welcome to another episode of Movies that Make Us! We’re wrapping up our “Reunited and it feels so good” month with a look back at the underappreciated film Muppets Take Manhattan.This is the third Muppets film and the first directed by someone other than Jim Henson. Henson was tired after filming The Great Muppet Caper and The Dark Crystal back to back, so he turned the director’s chair over to Frank Oz. Interesting fact, the film was originally going to feature cameos from Dustin Hoffman, Steve Martin, Michael Jackson, Laurence Olivier, Richard Pryor among others. Hoffman was going to play the role of a broadway producer (later played by Dabney Coleman) but dropped out at the last minute as he was afraid it would insult film producer Robert Evans (The Godfather) and dropped out resulting in all the cameos cancelling as well. Oz and his team had to rewrite most of the film’s dialogue right before filming as a result.What are your thoughts on the film? As always, you can reach us at podcast@moviesthatmakeus.c