Where The Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009)

[eez28]

Here is a clip.

[kaujot]

Loved it.

[Cde.]

Wow. Really beautiful stuff. Jonze has the right idea: rather than fill this thing with obnoxious blue screen work and over the top characters, he's clearly set this in the real world, and used the CG as little as possible. The tone of this looks remarkably mature for a big studio 'CG creature' movie. I'm hoping that the coming reshoots are intended to do something other than rape the film.

[Floyd]

I was especially astounded after watching "Amarillo by Morning" to read that Jonze got all those amazing moments in a single day. I guess documentary has never been what Jonze has aspired to do, and it's probably not the form of filmmaking he most enjoys or finds satisfying, which is too bad because he's so good at it.

I really do agree with this statement Gregory as I find Amarillo by Morning a remarkable work. It is a favorite film of mine. That said, I am looking forward to this. I just read that clip was taken down everywhere because it was 'user generated'. I didn't get to see it so I can't really comment.

[jon]

Here is the clip in question...

[Cosmic Bus]

Who is the boy in that clip? I was under the impression Paul Dano was playing that role.

[Jeff]

Who is the boy in that clip? I was under the impression Paul Dano was playing that role.

His improbable name is Max Records. Paul Dano is a good 15 years too old for the role.

[jon]

it's getting take down all over, so see it while you can

[Cde.]

Apparently the clip is test footage, and the boy in the video is one 'Griffin Armstorff'.

I hope the final film matches the tone of that clip, but with all the delays it's getting I can't help but be suspicious.

[John Cope]

Some unnerving news.

[Antoine Doinel]

To me, the fact that test audiences are responding negatively, and that the tone was "too dark" for the studio makes me think Jonze/Eggers were on the right track.

This is sounding dangerously similar to the fiasco that Warner's got themselves into with The Invasion last summer and it won't surprise me if they dump Jonze from the project altogether.

[domino harvey]

I think it's hilarious that the studio didn't realize that a Jonze/Eggers film was going to be an art house flick and not a summer blockbuster romp

[Antoine Doinel]

Maybe they read the names "Jonze/Eggers" during a brunch meeting and thought it was an omelet.

[pianocrash]

It never fails to amaze me how the studios can constantly bet against themselves like degenerate gamblers, throwing money away on projects that never would have made money (like the exorcist debacle), and all because the profitability of one movie depends so much on marketing and how the public perceives it, not how it really is. Could you imagine being a studio head and reading those test screening comments? A beloved children's classic leading to kids crying in the theater?

When The Science of Sleep opened, I saw families of three and four buy tickets, just because there were two people riding a toy horse on the poster.

[Cde.]

This is just as I feared. There are two positive outcomes from this that I could see:
1. The studio leaves film as is and dumps it, or
2. The studio releases their Shawn Levy version first, with the original film being released on DVD later, perhaps with a brief art-house run first.

Both of these options are possible, since I've heard the film is very close to completion. The delays are due to the studio's horror at what's been created more than anything else.

[domino harvey]

This is such a bad idea that it's forced me to defend Jonze's movie even though I think it looks bad: the studio knew what they were signing on for, they read the script and talked to all involved. They did the shopping, they did the cooking, and no matter how much thyme or salt they pour into it after it's done, it's not gonna mask the original dish, it's only gonna make it taste worse.

[pianocrash]

But hasn't this project been in developmental hell longer than A Confederacy of Dunces? With the relentless hiring and firing turnover that happens in the big leagues (like Costco, but with less denim), I'm sure an overly optimistic set of people had been willing to see this through, and hiring Jonze/Eggers to set into motion this so-called catastrophe may have been the decision of a predecessor, or someone from an already passed-over regime. I'm pretty sure that if it were made today, a movie like The Dark Crystal would have been compromised until there were no vision left in the end result, except that of a bullet-sweating pair of scissor hands checking Variety on his Blackberry every five minutes. We would have had Barnyard: the Original Party Animals (respectfully, a classic in its own right).

I only say all this because I do fear the worst for the film that's already in the can. In in this age of media, why not release three or four versions of the same movie? People barely leave their houses, or the internet for more than an hour or two at a time, so why not watch five different adaptations of WTWTA each night over the course of a week? Or is PBS' Three Months of Jane Austen really doing that bad?

[Fletch F. Fletch]

The Guardian documents the film's troubled production history.

[feihong]

The book itself, vaunted "children's classic" as it is perceived, has long been controversial because of the very "dark motifs" that run through it. To say nothing of the basic celebration of childhood anarchy running through the narrative. When first released the book was banned from many libraries.

Another note: just read the other day how a mother told Sendak at a signing: "every time I read the book to my daughter, she cries."
"Why did you keep reading it to her, when she does not like it?" asks Sendak.
"She ought to like it, it's a Caldecott book," says the mother. Sendak told her that if the child didn't like the book, she ought to throw it in the trash.

[Antoine Doinel]

Forest Whitaker defends Jonze's cut.

[Mr Sausage]

The book itself, vaunted "children's classic" as it is perceived, has long been controversial because of the very "dark motifs" that run through it

All the best children's stories have a darkness running through them. Children perceive darkness in their world, with more wonder and more acuity than adults, and it seems a fallacy to push illusions on them which they intuitively know are untrue. They feel darkness in their life, so darkness should be shown in the world of their books, too, because they will feel a common experience in it. And as for children being scared: I don't know a single person who doesn't talk with fondness and a widening of the eyes when discussing the movies or the books that frightened them the most as a kid. I know that if I had the choice I wouldn't alter a single one of those terrifying film or book experiences from my childhood; rather, I cherish them.

Which is to say, most parents irritate me with the self-induced ignorance of their over-concern.

[Antoine Doinel]

Bradford Cox of Deerhunter has also worked with Karen O on the soundtrack.

[miless]

I was stumbling online and I found this

[domino harvey]

[Cde.]

If WB really wanted to keep the tone consistent with these reshoots then they wouldn't have hired an entirely different scriptwriter (whose last work was Alvin and the Chipmunks) to 'make the story line more clear.'