Power of the Dark Crystal

Concept art of Queen Kira.

Power of the Dark Crystal is a proposed sequel to the 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal. The film project was first announced in Variety in May 2005 when the Jim Henson Company bought a script by David Odell and Annette Duffy. In January 2006, the Henson Company announced that Orphange Animation Studio would be providing CG animation elements and named Orphanage's Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack) as director for the film.

Brian Froud, the designer of the original film, worked with the Henson Company on concept art for the new film. Tartakovsky and Froud appeared with Lisa Henson and Michael Polis to talk about the film at the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2006. Froud's concept art for Queen Kira was featured on the cover of Cinefantastique. More concept art was revealed in October 2006, accompanying an article on MTV.com.

The MTV.com article provided a plot summary:

“The Power script continues the tale of elfin heroes Jen and Kira, last seen returning the shard to the evil crystal and seemingly abolishing the vulture-like Skeksis from their land. Set many years after the first flick, Power casts Jen and Kira as king and queen, now overseeing a kingdom whose peace is disturbed by a visit from the underground-dwelling U-mun people. After the Gelflings refuse their request for a shard of crystal that could preserve the U-mun race, a desperate visitor takes it anyway, threatening their world with another thousand years of chaos.”

Lisa Henson announced at Comic-Con 2007 that the production had hit a "setback":

“Fans of The Dark Crystal did detect that we were moving a little slowly, and it’s kind of true - we had a little setback but are back on track. The movie will not be coming out until 2009 so we’re not going to be showing anything for a while... ”

Nicole Goldman, the Henson Company's VP of Marketing and Publicity, mentioned the project on the Jim Henson Company Podcast in January 2008:

“[The film] is deep in development here, and we are as committed to it as ever. We are still planning our original vision of a film, which is a theatrical release... We are anticipating a beautiful blend of puppetry and animatronics with CG animation backgrounds as we've said all along... We're all very excited to see the film come together, and we'll be sure to update the fans to the progress as we have those updates confirmed. So stay tuned for more information on Power of the Dark Crystal! ”

When interviwed in July 2008, Brian Froud reported that "I’m working on the design of a character, Wendy has helped now in Jen and Kira, like last time, but at the moment they haven’t decided on a start day, I think they're still organizing the pre-production and funding process."

On February 4, 2009, in the Muppet Newsflash but with no clear indication of the source, Greg James claimed that development on the project was still underway, with Craig Pearce (Romeo & Juliet, Moulin Rouge!) having completed a rewrite of the screenplay, with the Australian company Omnilab Media (an "integrated media company" according to its website) set to co-produce. The blog entry also reported that "The movie is not expected to hit theaters until 2011... however I've been told that things are on track and continuing to move along." The following day, Variety offered a contradictory claim; noting financial troubles at VFX production house The Orphanage, the article stated that "Unaffected by the closure is Los Angeles-based Orphanage Animation Studio, headed by Genndy Tartakovsky. OAS and the Jim Henson Co. continue to work on "The Power of the Dark Crystal," OAS' first announced feature."

Gallery

Concept art of Queen Kira and King Jen.

Concept art of Thurma.