Long in development and set up more than once, The Happytime Murders is a project we've been keeping a beady eye (as in made out of a bead) on for a while now. With the backing of indie studio STX Entertainment, it took a big step forward to reality last year and now Jamie Foxx is in early talks to star in the film.
Happytime was cooked up back in 2008 by Brian Henson (son of Muppet man Jim, and one of the keepers of the famiily business) as a strictly-for-adults take on puppet life. It’s set in a world where humans and their felt friends live side by side, but the puppets are treated as second-class citizens. Murder strikes as the seedy former stars of once-popular kids’ show The Happytime Gang turn up dead one by one, and the only 'man' who can investigate is a washed-up private eye puppet, who ropes in Detective Edwards, his take-no-prisoners former partner at the LAPD, a human with a secret. Since he's not made of felt – that we know of, at least – Foxx is circling the role of the cop.
Henson, who has said that the film will "take puppets to a place where we have never gone before on the big screen," is directing from a script by Todd Berger, Dee Robertson, and sibling team Erich and Jon Hoeber.
Foxx, meanwhile, will be seen in Edgar Wright's Baby Driver, thriller Sleepless Night and is playing Little John in Robin Hood: Origins.