Ray, Collateral, and Django Unchained star Jamie Foxx has entered into negotiations to star in The Happytime Murders, an R-rated dark comedy puppet noir movie from The Jim Henson Company and STX Entertainment.

The movie, which has been in development for the better part of a decade now, will follow a pair of detectives attempting to solve the mysterious murders of the puppet stars of a popular TV show. It will be directed by Brian Henson, the chairman of The Jim Henson Co. and son of the legendary Jim Henson himself.

You can read a better description of the movie below.

The story follows puppet stars of an iconic TV show The Happytime Gang who are some of the biggest celebrities around. But off-camera, the family friendly cast leads the kinds of lives that would make a tabloid writer blush.

When the Happytime Gang stars begin to be mysteriously murdered, two mismatched detectives – one a type-A, take-no-prisoners human with a secret and the other a crass, hard-drinking puppet with a connection to one of the victims – must put aside their differences to stop the killings and catch the culprit, all the while trying to resist the temptation to murder each other.

If a deal is agreed upon and ink hits paper, Foxx would play the human character in The Happytime Murders, an LAPD cop named Detective Edwards. The alcoholic puppet character is named Phil, who isn’t big on his partner’s clean and by-the-book style. Who might voice Phil is not yet known.

The screenplay for the movie was worked on by Todd Berger (writer and director of It’s A Disaster), Dee Austin Robertson, and Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber (RED, RED 2, Battleship).

Foxx can next be seen playing Little John in Robin Hood: Origins, which stars Kingsman: The Secret Service breakout Taron Egerton as a young Robin Hood, and in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, both planned for 2017 releases.

[Source: Deadline]