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 Studio Muppet assets were then placed into The Muppets Holding Company with Chris Curtin as general manager within Disney Consumer Products. A new website was launched in November 2004 and the Muppets made an appearance on the 2004 Christmas episode of "Saturday Night Live". The first Muppet production under full Disney control, "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz", went into production immediately and aired on ABC in May 2005. On July 30, 2005, Animal and Pepe the King Prawn made appearance on The X Games 11 Preview show of All Access on ESPN2. Bear's first appearance under Disney's control was in the