Huh. So it appears that the “Fraggle Rock” film is moving along, despite the doom and gloom forecasted by writer/director Cory Edwards this spring. As you might recall, Edwards took to his blog a few months back saying that The Weinstein Company were pretty much stalling on the movie, the project was in a “deep coma” and he was effectively move on to something else while the studio figured out what to do. This followed reports last summer in which Edwards said he was “struggling to stay in control of my own movie” and that The Weinstein Company wanted a new writer to take on the project to make it “edgier.” Well, it appears it has found some edge.
In a pretty surprising announcement, Music Week reports that Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears and guitarist Babydaddy have been hired on to write music for the gestating film. Details are scarce at this point. There is no mention of either Edwards or the Weinsteins, but that being said, the deal was struck with the Jim Henson Company who control the rights to all things Fraggle.
No deadlines or production dates have been revealed either, but there is a suggestion that Shears and Babydaddy are being brought in on the ground floor. “By working with [Henson] right from the very start it means that we can make music an integral part of the film; as important and as emotionally effective as the filmmaking – helping the two to co-promote each other,” said Mark Fried, the managing director of the band’s publisher Spirit Music. So have the Fraggle movie producer finally settled on a script and a direction? Guess we’ll find out soon enough.
The choice is an…interesting one. The disco/dance outfit the Scissor Sisters wouldn’t exactly be our first choice to write the music for this film, but perhaps Shears and Babydaddy will step outside of the box they have established with their day job. And you know, listening to that theme song again, we could see them doing a pretty decent contemporary spin on it (though, if they’re smart, they won’t tinker too much with what already works). Update: Christopher at Celluloid & Cigarette Burns points out that the Jim Henson team once did some stage work for the Scissor Sisters back in the day. You can check out the result of that effort below.
