When Lisa Henson first saw Jim Henson Idea Man, the Ron Howard-directed documentary about her famous puppeteer father, she instantly considered it a success. “It was wonderful to see that Ron had landed it,” Lisa tells THR. “We had hoped that in the storytelling, Ron might be able to channel some of the creativity of Jim Henson and The Muppets, and he brought sketches to life with animation, used stop-motion from time to time, and presented the film in a creative style.”
That approach earned the documentary eight Emmy nominations, including outstanding documentary and directing for Howard, as well as nods for cinematography, editing and writing.
Was this documentary an immediate yes for you and your siblings?
Yes. We had been approached for several years by various documentary filmmakers and companies. Each of them said that Jim Henson was their favorite person and this would be their passion project, but we resisted because we felt there was one really great documentary to be made and we wanted to wait until the perfect filmmaker came along. We were hoping that that filmmaker would be a personality match with Jim Henson, somebody who would really understand the work and him as a person or be curious on the right level. So when Marjon Javadi at Disney made the match between Ron, Imagine Documentaries and ourselves, it was an immediate yes.
Your mom Jane’s story is told through this film as well. How did that piece unravel?
The story of their partnership was an untold story. I love that Ron was curious about my mother; he was interested and attracted to her sense of humor. And as he watched the early [archive] material, he became more intrigued with the story of the creative partnership that became a marriage, a company and then a troubled marriage. He came to us at a certain point and said, “I’m going to be digging deeper into the story of your mother,” and he did a second round of interviews about her.
Your dad, near the end of his life, bought back the rights to The Muppets and the intellectual property he created. What do you think about the foresight he had as you sit as CEO of the Jim Henson Co. now?
I’m CEO of our family company now, but when I was younger, I was a studio executive at Warner Bros. and a film executive at Columbia, and having met so many heavy-duty creative types in Hollywood, when I look back on my father doing that, I know very few people who would ever consider doing that — and that’s with my knowing a lot of people. When we were participating in the writing of the biography, we started delving back into that as a family and what an incredible show of bravery. Usually when things are being sold, a lot of creatives in Hollywood are used to shrugging and going, “Oh, well.” The fact that he went after these assets that were changing hands and said, “I need them back for myself,” just shows how strongly he believed in what he was doing and how strongly he believed in the work itself.
Is a scripted feature still in the works?
The Muppet Man is in development with Disney. It’s currently without a director and not on the slate, but everybody sees a lot of potential in it, so perhaps someday.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
