The Cynical and Awful Truth: Why Disney Isn’t Doing More With the Muppets

Over the last few months, The Walt Disney Company has learned a valuable lesson: fans love the Muppets. Despite fans telling Disney loud and clear just how much they love the Muppets, Disney hasn’t been listening to them.

Disney had the option of keeping Muppet Vision 3D at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and putting its new Monsters, Inc. Land in the nearly vacant Animation Courtyard. Instead, Disney removed Muppet Vision 3D, the last project that Muppets creator Jim Henson worked on.

However, Disney did throw Muppets fans a bone by moving the Muppets to the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, replacing Aerosmith. But even that does not seem to be enough for one of the beloved Disney-owned franchises.

So, to placate Muppets fans, at least some of them, Disney used Fozzie Bear to deliver a special holiday message to Disney Vacation Club members.

That begs the question: Why does Disney not use one of its most beloved franchises more? Unlike Star Wars, Pixar, and Marvel, the Muppets don’t have their land in a Disney Park and very rarely make a new movie. One fan came up with a rather upsetting theory.

Why Disney Doesn’t Use the Muppets More

Suppose you looked at social media when the announcement of Muppet Vision 3D’s closing; you would have thought that Disney canceled Mickey Mouse. Fans were mourning the loss of the last project that Muppets’ creator Jim Henson ever worked on.

There was an outpouring of love for the Muppets, and fans wondered why Disney would remove the only attraction feature, the Henson creation, in the parks. Fans also wanted to know why Disney wasn’t making another Muppets movie after the success of The Muppets (2011), the first of two Muppets films produced by Disney since it bought the franchise in 2004.

The world is clamoring for more muppets. But disney refuses to use them for anything but promoting their other properties, probably because puppeteers are unionized and you can't replace them with a non-union vfx worker like every other aspect of their movie production

— Zane Schacht – Voice Goblin (@voicesbyzane.bsky.social) 2024-12-20T15:05:01.654Z

One fan came up with a theory. He wrote:

The world is clamoring for more muppets. But Disney refuses to use them for anything but promoting their other properties, probably because puppeteers are unionized and you can’t replace them with a non-union vfx worker like every other aspect of their movie production.

While it is true that Disney cannot replace the Muppets with visual effects, and the puppeteers are unionized, Disney’s Muppet movies (there have only been two) did not cost that much to produce.

The Muppets only cost Disney $45 million, and Muppets Most Wanted (2014) only cost $50 million. Combined, the two are less than half the cost of an average Marvel film.

The issue isn’t the cost; it’s the gross. The two films combined to make less than $150 million worldwide at the box office.

Perhaps that’s the problem. While people clamor for the Muppets online, in the real world, no one really wants them.

If fans really want to see the Muppets in Disney Parks, the next time they premiere a film, they’re going to have to stuff the theaters and show executives at Disney just how much we all love the Muppets.