It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights. It’s time to get things started. But it’s not the Muppet Show tonight. Oh no. It’s We R Animals, the new R-rated, comedy-horror trailer by Swedish writer and director Thobias Hoffmén and starring a load of puppets.
We R Animals started life back in 2010, when the young Hoffmén wrote a script about a bunch of animatronic animals, which garnered a lot of attention from some very large production companies. The script was sold, but alas, nothing ever came of it. Something about R-rated puppets just didn’t seem to appeal to investors. They obviously hadn’t seen Team America.
Five years later, in 2015, Hoffmén reacquired the rights to the project and quickly set about funding and creating his own teaser trailer, which, after generating some buzz in the geek world, would serve as the backbone for his very own Kickstarter project.
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So, what is the film about? Hoffmén explains on his Kickstarter page:
While humans have gone to the moon and invented smartphones, animals are just hopelessly underdeveloped. Or is that really the case? We R Animals tells the story of a different reality. They’re not as stupid as they might seem, and they’re definitely not as cute and innocent. Being cute is actually something they’ve learned to benefit from since a lot of the ”cute-animal-video-clips” you see on the web are, in fact, produced by the animals themselves. Much like the porn industry, this is a nasty business where shady animals earn a lot of money on ads and treats their stars like shit. Welcome to the nasty ”cute animals film industry!”
Through the realization of We R Animals, Hoffmén has created a labor of love in the seediest of settings. If you love the Muppets, then this is probably one to stay away from. There’s more of a Meet the Feebles vibe here than one of “It’s not easy being green.” But that’s okay. If you always wanted to see Kermit and Miss Piggy get down and dirty, though, then this one’s probably for you!
You’ll agree, the teaser looks bonkers, and it’s definitely something we can’t wait to see!
