Froud also met his wife, the American puppet builder Wendy Froud (then Wendy Midener), in Henson’s studios. They went on to collaborate on “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth” (1986). Back in the 1970s, Jim Henson had admired Froud’s richly textured illustrations of woodland trolls and goblins (perhaps the soft, rounded faces struck a chord with the creator of the Muppets). Henson’s next call was to Brian Froud, a British artist who had been the conceptual designer on the original film.
THE DARK CRYSTAL WATCH TV
So the two projects were combined into one live-action prequel TV series, to be made by Leterrier in “the most complicated way possible,” he said. “Everyone was scared of it,” said Leterrier.īut Netflix was interested, Henson said, because it was looking for something children and parents could watch together. Unsurprisingly, Hollywood studios didn’t fall over themselves to bankroll a cartoon about genocide and ecological catastrophe.
THE DARK CRYSTAL WATCH SERIES
They ended up with a two-pronged project: Leterrier, desperate to work with puppets, was to direct a live-action sequel for the big screen, while an animated television series was to tell the tale of how Thra’s peaceful, matriarchal civilization had crumbled in the first place, leaving behind the wasteland depicted in the film. “You had the sense that things were happening in other parts of the world which you didn’t see in the movie,” she continued, “and that you could go back in time many years.” Her father, she noted, had worked on developing the film for “an exceptionally long time, so the world had a reality and a mythology to it that were comparable to places like Middle-earth and Westeros.” “We’re going to find out.”Īll 10 episodes were directed by the French director Louis Leterrier, a longtime Henson fan whose films include Marvel’s “The Incredible Hulk” and the 2010 remake of “Clash of the Titans.” When Leterrier first came to Hollywood, his agent asked him whom he would like to meet in the American film industry.
“What’s it like to watch 10 hours of something, and it’s live-action, and there are no humans in it?” asked Jeff Addiss, a co-executive producer and one of two head writers (with Will Matthews), on set in August 2018. The grotesque Skeksis, the gentle Gelflings and the potato-faced Podlings will be familiar to anyone who has seen the film, but the series is new territory for everyone involved, including the viewer. A 10-part series, it includes 180 puppet characters, 90 different sets and 10,000 lines of dialogue voiced by an all-star cast that includes Mark Hamill, Helena Bonham Carter, Andy Samberg, Simon Pegg and Keegan-Michael Key. “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance,” premiering Friday on Netflix, is built on an even grander scale.
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