Comedian, controversial awards show host, and annoyingly militant atheist twitterer Ricky Gervais was among the folks who shot a cameo in the first Muppet reboot from last year, but did not end up in the final cut of the film. Turns out he’ll get to try again with the sequel, and if the deal in question goes through he’ll be much harder to cut out!
There’s no word on the plot or story of the new, second Muppet film yet, but whatever is going down still features humans, and according to THR, Gervais is up for the lead human role. He’ll be spiritually replacing Jason Segel –the driving force behind the last film and the gracefully departing former lead– and he’ll be playing against the very funny Ty Burrell, the already-cast Modern Family star.
Gervais is an interesting choice to lead a Disney film, to say the least. The guy is not exactly a family-friendly figure, even if he’ll water himself down for that check but quick. That’s not to say The Muppets don’t have a history of light subversion that Gervais would fit into, but I’m just wondering how much of any of that we’ll see here. The guy is funny enough that I’ll have no trouble with him landing the role, but what I’m more hoping to see is an increased focus on the muppets themselves. I feel like most fans would agree.
Still, Gervais has decent Elmo chemistry, and that’s always a good start…
Thanks to Michael Cherkowsky