Image Credit: Everett Collection
To the generation that grew up watching The Muppet Show, Frank Oz is the man behind Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. To the Star Wars fanboys, he’s Yoda. To the under-10 set, he’s Bert and Cookie Monster. For lovers of musical theater, though, he’s the director who brought a nerdy florist and his bloodthirsty plant to toe-tapping life on the big screen. Little Shop of Horrors — a 1986 adaptation of the Off-Broadway show based on a Roger Corman film of the same name — holds a special place in our hearts for the music of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (of Beauty and the Beast fame) and that Mean Green Mother From Outer Space himself, Audrey II. With news breaking of a potential remake and rumors suggesting his movie will finally be re-released with its original ending intact, EW reached out to the filmmaker to learn what is in store for his cult classic, which screens tomorrow night as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s “A Night of Oz.”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Little Shop seems to have grown in popularity over the years. Are you at all surprised by that, given the film’s initial release?
FRANK OZ: Yes. It did only okay when it came out and it’s been nice [to see it become] a cult film. I was surprised, yeah. Although with me, I do my films, I work the very best I can, and I go on, so I don’t think about it too much. I haven’t seen it hardly at all since it opened up. I’ll be curious about the audience’s reaction, because this was made 25 years ago. READ FULL STORY »
