Trivia / Muppets Most Wanted

• Acclaimed Flop: This film received very strong reviews, but did not do very well at the box office for many reasons.
  • First and foremost, it opened against the Critic-Proof Divergent. At the time the release date was chosen for Muppets, the expectations for Divergent were not very high, as it was only a moderately popular book franchise. Then the hype started rivaling that of the first Twilight. This proved to be a bad sign for Muppets, and come release day, Kermit and the gang got crushed.
  • After a string of similarly acclaimed family films, its target audience was somewhat exhausted by the time it was released. The release of two other blockbusters in the two weeks following didn't help either.
  • Comments at Disney-insider site JimHillMedia.com on the film's lack of popularity also pointed out that a significant chunk of the film taking place in a Russian gulag might not have helped its chances, given then recent far-less-than-funny events in Crimea and Ukraine.
  • Muppet fansite ToughPigs.com noted that — putting aside Divergent and the family film string, which they briefly commented on — the film had an over-reliance on Viral Marketing^note which, by its very nature, primarily reached out for grown-up Muppet fans and not families and ended up demonstrating why one should not completely gamble on that kind of marketing: while Muppets Most Wanted was primarily promoted by having a prominent presence on Facebook (with 6.6 million likes for its official page), Twitter, Instagram, BuzzFeed, YouTube and Tumblr at the expense of traditional in-real-life ads, its rival Mr. Peabody & Sherman took the safer route by doing the exact opposite in marketing (only having 1.4 million Facebook likes for its page in the end) and came out the box office winner, opening at $32 million and still managing to gross $11 million in its third week directly against Most Wanted's opening $17 million.
  • There's also the fact that the "Adele Dazeem" commercial gave away a pretty huge spoiler, namely that Dominic was bribing the journalists to write good reviews for the Muppets' tour.
• All-Star Cast: This being a Muppet production, Wikipedia has a list of celebrity appearances.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $50 million. Box office, $51,183,113 (domestic), $80,383,290 (worldwide). There have been a number of reasons suggested for the film's not doing better (see Acclaimed Flop). The film's bombing wasn't enough to make Disney give up on the franchise as a whole, but it seems to have been enough to prevent them from making any more theatrical Muppet movies for at least a while.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Christoph Waltz was the original choice for Jean Pierre Napoleon, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. He gets a cameo in the finished product as the special guest in the Berlin show.
• Deleted Role: Bridgit Mendler, Debby Ryan, Dexter Fletcher, Peter Serafinowicz, Jake Short and Tyrel Jackson Williams all filmed scenes that were cut.
• Development Gag: The climax of "We're Doing a Sequel" has the cast sing the title as "The Muppets Again" before the real title comes up. "The Muppets Again!" was originally going to be the title of the film. In fact Walter suggests they give it that title.
• Fake Irish: London native Hugh Bonneville has a brief appearance as an Irish journalist.
• Fake Russian: Constantine's Muppeteer is the American Matt Vogel, Nadya is portrayed by the American Tina Fey, the (former) Prison King is played by New Zealander Jemaine Clement...the only actor in the prison scenes who isn't pretending to be Russian seems to be Danny Trejo, only because he's acting As Himself.
• Fandom Nod: Rizzo echoing most fans' thoughts after seeing the first movie:
  Rowlf: Wait, Walter quit the Muppets? We just did a whole movie where he joined the Muppets.
  Floyd: Yeah, man, we sure spent a lot of time on it.
  Rizzo: I'll say. Maybe even at the expense of other long-standing, beloved Muppets.
• In Memoriam: "In Memory of Jane Henson and Jerry Nelson" appears at the very end of the credits. Jane was Jim Henson's widow and Jerry was an active Muppet Performer from The '60s onward.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Subway sold a set of six duffle bags. These featured Kermit, Beaker, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Animal, and a group shot of the Muppets together.
• Looping Lines: After the "Interrogation Song", Sam says "Come on, let's go over the files again!". The line was very clearly ADR'd as his faint reflection in the mirror shows his mouth isn't moving.
• Meme Acknowledgement: As seen in A Very Pentatonix Christmas, Constantine is aware of his fame in the "Evil Kermit" meme, and he's not too fond of how that is what he's most famous for, whereas Kermit is a cultural icon.
• Orphaned Reference: Many releases of the film, including the Disney+ and Amazon Prime ones, cut a verse from Constantine's song "I Can Give You What You Want", in which he promises to give Piggy both a kangaroo and a cockatoo should she desire it. This makes the final chorus—which just repeats the words "cockatoo" and "kangaroo"—completely baffling nonsense.
• Refitted for Sequel: Ricky Gervais filmed a cameo As Himself for the previous Muppets film, but his scene was cut. He returned for Most Wanted in the more prominent role of Dominic Badguy.
• Working Title: The original title of the movie was The Muppets... Again. It was changed very late in pre-production to match the plot due to the negative reception from social media, but you can still hear the original title name in the opening song.

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