Jim Henson Productions have begun development on a comedy titled HAPPYTIME MURDERS, which would place the popular kids characters The Muppets in the land of detective film noir!

A sign of the times perhaps that Kermit the Frog will star in a movie with MURDERS in the title.

Brian Henson who gave us MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND and A MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL will direct from a script by Todd Berger (who has sold several big scripts lately) has wrote the script based on the idea he hatched with Dee Robertson.

Variety say the movie will mix human characters and muppets, focusing on a puppet detective (probably Kermit) who is forced to solve a string of murders involving the Happytime Gang, the cast of a popular children’s show.

Does that really sound like something you could bring your kids too?

And does this mean The Muppets Movie from the team that brought us FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is now out of the window?