The Dark Crystal Gets a 3-D Sequel
Posted 05.05.10 by Ryan
Looks like Tron:Legacy isn't the only sequel to arrive 27 years later. Tron opened in 1982 along with The Dark Crystal, and while Tron: Legacy will enter theaters first, Dark Crystal is also getting a second installment, also in 3-D.
Collider reports that The Jim Henson Company will head to Australia to shoot the sequel, Power of the Dark Crystal. The movie will be one of the biggest projects to be produced in the country. Stepping in for director Frank Oz will be Australian sibling directors Peter Spierig and Michael Spierig, whose most recent movie was the vampire flick Daybreakers. Another Australian, Craig Pearce (Moulin Rouge) wrote the screenplay based on an original script by Annette Duffy and David Odell.
The original movie followed two elvish-looking creatures, called Gelflings, who set out to restore order to their world by retrieving a magic crystal's missing shard. For those that have seen the original, that summary makes perfect sense. The sequel, meanwhile, will be set far in the future.
Set hundreds of years after the events of the first movie when the world has once again fallen into darkness, Power of the Dark Crystal follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, together with a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the legendary Crystal in an attempt to reignite the dying sun that exists at the center of the planet.
The Spierig brothers may seem like unusual choices for the project, something the twin siblings are well aware of. "We feel a tremendous amount of responsibility in telling this story with the same meticulous care that Jim Henson and Frank Oz gave the 1982 original," said Michael in the press release for the sequel.
To further set the minds of fans at ease, Peter revealed that the Dark Crystal sequel will use puppetry.
This is a chance to take the world of puppetry into the modern age by using modern techniques (like motion capture CGI) and the tried and true methods (like puppetry and animatronics) to create a one hundred percent real world that is unique to The Dark Crystal.