Spike Jonze is cross promoting his girls skateboard company and Where the Wild Things Are with some nice graphics of the film on his boards. Who doesn't remember waiting in elementary school for this book to be checked back in to the library?
In other news the film isn't due until this October! There are a lot of children's books that have been made into films for both small and big screen. Maurice Sendak's (wrote and illustrated) tale of Where The Wild Things Are is one big film for the big screen. Check out these big Things!
Maurice Sendak is quite a character as his own book scared his daughter when his wife would read it to her. In fact he consulted heavily on the film. Where as Spike Jones was given broad freedom in creative Sendak's input was clear, ‘if you can’t be children, don’t be in the f----- movie.’ Sendak would say, ‘I want to see children. I don’t know any adults who are able to be children.’ The question has become did Spike Jones achieve that goal?
Because in June of 2008 Warner Brothers decided to reshoot much if not all of the film in Los Angeles reshoots. Prior to the reshoots the early news from people directly involved in the production was the film was done right and gave it the thumbs up. One early screener said the movie was great and involved a number of adult themes. What else do you do with one of the shortest stories ever written? Later in executive screenings the film appeared to scare children so the studio executives made the decision to reshoot. We've heard no rumblings from the Spike Jones directly and Jone's is saying nothing as to whether he feels his work has been compromised. The rumors of the reshooting are that the executives at Warner/Legendary don't like the lead (child) actor's performance, that he is not likeable and they don't like the tone of the story. That's a lot of changes for what was a completed $75 million dollar movie.
PCM Footnote: Did you know Where The Wild Things Are is only ten sentences long? And that the author originally intended for the monsters to be horses but changed when he found he could not draw horses.
