Dark Crystal Sequel Announced

Puppets and fantasy mix again as a sequel to the eighties classic The Dark Crystal is announced.

The Jim Henson Company has announced that a sequel to the 1982 movie The Dark Crystal is in production. The sequel, titled Power of the Dark Crystal, is to be made in Australia and is set hundreds of years after the first movie, and follows the adventures of a girl made of fire and a gelfling outcast as they try to use the Dark Crystal’s power to re-ignite the sun at the centre of the world.

The movie is being written by Craig Pearce, who wrote Moulin Rouge and Romeo & Juliet, based on a script written by Annette Duffy, and David Odell who wrote the screenplay for the first movie. Brian Froud returns as the conceptual designer for the movie, and the creature effects will be done by the company Iloura, who recently brought Where The Wild Things Are to life. The film is being directed by the Spierig brothers, who most recently directed vampire thriller Daybreakers

“We feel a tremendous amount of responsibility in telling this story with the same meticulous care that Jim Henson and Frank Oz gave the 1982 original,” said Micheal Spierig. “This is a chance to take the world of puppetry into the modern age by using modern techniques (like motion capture CGI) and the tried and true methods (like puppetry and animatronics) to create a one hundred percent real world that is unique to The Dark Crystal,” added Peter Spierig

The Dark Crystal was one of the staples of my childhood, so I’m both excited and nervous about the sequel. It’s very reassuring that so much effort seems to be going into retaining what made the first movie great, but still, it’s a sequel to a movie that doesn’t really need one, and that rarely goes well.

Source: Slashfilm via Topless Robot