Cinestate’s Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, released in limited theaters and VOD this past weekend, essentially introduces an alternate vision for the franchise, one that’s similar but ultimately different from the original Full Moon franchise. Most notably, the puppets in The Littlest Reich are Nazis created by a Nazi, which isn’t sitting well with some fans.
So what does the future hold for Puppet Master? Is the original franchise dead now that an alternate franchise has sprung up? Definitely not, Charles Band tells ComicBook.com. As it turns out, the deal he inked allows for Puppet Master to become two different franchises.
“I had had some offers over the last six, seven years, and one was really substantial by a major studio for basically taking over and doing the remake and that puts you out of the Puppet Master business,” Band explained to the site. “When Dallas [Sonnier] came to me from Cinestate, he says, ‘You know, Charlie, I wanna do a Puppet Master remake. We have a really cool idea. It’s gonna be very dark and unlike those other offers you’ve been telling me about, we’ll make you an offer; we’ll make this movie and it’s gonna be on its own separate track. It’s gonna live in its own world. You can continue making all your Puppet Master movies and we’ll keep making these if they’re successful.‘ So it was very unique.”
Band, who exec produced The Littlest Reich, continued, “I don’t know if it has existed anywhere else where someone comes in makes a bigger budgeted reboot and lets the original filmmaker keep making his own Puppet Master movies. But that’s what’s really unique about this deal and why I’m happy they’ve gone gonzo and did some crazy stuff, ’cause I think it’ll bring attention, if nothing else, to the Puppet Master world. But their Puppet Master is inspired by ours, but different. In terms of the merchandising, which we’re very heavily into, they’ll keep making theirs if it goes well and we’ll be able to keep making our Puppet Master series.”
