One of the more interesting projects to finally emerge from filmmaking limbo, live-action puppet crime film The Happytime Murders finally locked in a lead in May, as Melissa McCarthy stepped aboard. Now there's a Bridesmaids reunion in the offing, as Maya Rudolph is joining her.
Happytime was cooked up back in 2008 by Brian (son of Jim) Henson 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 his former partner at the LAPD (McCarthy, though that has yet to be confirmed).
Henson is on to direct the movie, but there's no sign yet of what role Rudolph will be playing – be it actual person or voice of a puppet. She has been doing a lot of voiceover work recently, so perhaps she's after a little more screen time. And she will be reuniting with McCarthy even before stepping on the Happytime set, as she's part of the cast for Life Of The Party, which will be out on 11 May next year.