The Muppets film, "Muppets from Space", released by Columbia Pictures in 1999. In 2000, Henson was sold to EM.TV & Merchandising AG for $680 million. However, EM.TV was plagued with financial problems and the Henson family re-acquired the company in 2003, with the exception of the rights to the "Sesame Street" characters, which had been sold by EM.TV to Sesame Workshop. Fourteen years after initial negotiations began, Disney acquired the Muppets intellectual property from the Jim Henson Company for $75 million on February 17, 2004. The acquisition consisted of the Muppets and "Bear in the Big Blue House" properties, as well as
The Muppets Take Manhattan solves his long-lasting identity crisis. In his "2009 Movie Guide", Leonard Maltin gave the film a three star rating (out of four) as well citing that the film is an "enjoyable outing with bouncy songs, [with a] nice use of N.Y.C. locations." Unlike the Henson's previous films ("The Muppet Movie", "The Great Muppet Caper", and "The Dark Crystal"), "The Muppets Take Manhattan" was originally released by TriStar Pictures and not produced by ITC Entertainment; mainly because ITC was suffering from extreme financial difficulties at the time. Therefore, unlike the previous films, the distribution rights to "The Muppets Take Manhattan" did