First pic from Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are"

[Cornelius1047]

Anybody that's seen Adaptation and especially Being John Malkovich knows that the director of those movies shouldn't be directing a movie that young children will be watching. I think he's damn near brilliant myself, but it wouldn't surprise me if it played more like Pan's Labyrinth than, um, just Labyrinth, at least as far as visuals go. Seriously, if I had seen Being John Malkovich as a kid, it might've scarred me for life, although possibly for the better.

Then again, I did see Joe Vs. The Volcano and The 'Burbs as a child, and isn't Spike Jonze just Joe Dante on crack?

Maybe I'm just on crack.

K

[Mitchforth]

Jon Vitti is a really funny writer.

He was on The Simpsons for years, and wrote "Cape Feare" and "Mr. Plow," among others.

He also worked on "King of the Hill," and wrote the episode where Bobby becomes a rodeo clown, and the episode where Hank got raped by a dolphin.

Seems clear that Vitti, along with Jason Lee and David Cross, decided to take a paycheck on "Alvin." I did not see that movie and I don't know if it had any redeeming qualities, but I don't blame them for collecting the money on it.

[mhg83]

“"We'd like to find a common ground that represents Spike's vision but still offers a film that really delivers for a broad-based audience. We obviously still have a challenge on our hands,” said Warner exec Alan Horn, with perhaps a gigantic understatement. By way of reassurance, he added, “No one wants to turn this into a bland, sanitized studio movie. This is a very special piece of material and we're just trying to get it right."

-That just doesnt make sense. The studios want to sugercoat the film and censor Spike Jones but then say that they still wanna keep his vision of the film??? They're killing his version.

But i do love this part:

"Goldstein repeats rumors that children cried and ran out of test screenings"

Now i really wanna see that version!

[RichC2]

From CHUD:

Originally Posted by CHUD

I'm sitting on a train on the way down to San Diego with the filmmakers behind City of Ember, Fox Walden's big fall release directed by Monster House's Gil Kenan. Among the folks trapped on this train car with me is Gary Goetzman, producer of the film and one of the head guys at Playtone, and producer on Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. I talked to Gary about a lot of stuff (including the HBO miniseries The Pacific), but I had to get his take on what was happening with the film.

Good news: Gary says that Spike has final cut. And that Playtone is standing behind him.

"There was an Alan Horn conversation where he said his vision and Spike's vision weren't on the same page," Goetzman said. "We support Spike's vision. We're helping him make the vision he wants to make."

Goetzman does cop to technical problems on the picture - "Spike wanted to do things low tech. He wanted big animatronic Wild Things in the jungle, which look great. As you go deeper in the jungle and weather sets in... We misjudged that, production-wise."

He dismissed rumors that the film isn't kid friendly. "Kids are much smarter than [the studio types] think," Goetzman said. "Spike won't talk down to kids. He's got a kid's soul."

Talking to Goetzman filled me with a lot of hope - Playtone is artist friendly and Goetzman is adamant we'll see Spike's version of the movie. Let's hope so.

[NoirFan]

...and now it's back on again. From comingsoon.net:

The Spike Jonze-directed Where the Wild Things Are is back on Warner Bros.' release schedule. The adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's book is now set for a release on Oct. 16, 2009.

[RTisBetter]

This thing is going to be a flop on the level of Cutthroat Island. No one is looking forward to this thing, not even fans of the children's books of which I am one, and the advance buzz has been horrendous so far. Jonez is a genius, but every genius overshoots his mark at some point in his career.

[Supermallet]

I'm excited for it. From what I gather, the studio wants to make this a generic kid's film, and Jonze doesn't. I can't wait to see his cut. Guess I'll have to wait another year.

[RyoHazuki]

That release date is pretty far away. I'm not sure I believe this "Spike has final cut" stuff. I don't think Spike asked for those reshoots to make the beginning and end of the film more "emotional".

[troystiffler]

Originally Posted by RTisBetter

This thing is going to be a flop on the level of Cutthroat Island. No one is looking forward to this thing, not even fans of the children's books of which I am one, and the advance buzz has been horrendous so far. Jonez is a genius, but every genius overshoots his mark at some point in his career.

That 'test run' scene that's online is more than enough to get me to the theater.

[NoirFan]

A couple of newly released pics. Typically rambling AICN interview with Jonze here.

[NoirFan]

From here:

....(Hunter Hill and Perry Moore) are also working with Spike Jonze on a documentary about "Where the Wild Things Are" children's author Maurice Sendak.

[kstublen]

Goldstein repeats rumors that children cried and ran out of test screenings

LMAO. I loved the book as a kid. Jonze is brilliant. I hope Goetzman is telling the truth that Jonze has the final cut, although I am skeptical as to whether or not that's true. Hopefully he doesn't have to compromise his vision on this film.

[Giles]

Originally Posted by mhg83

“"We'd like to find a common ground that represents Spike's vision but still offers a film that really delivers for a broad-based audience. We obviously still have a challenge on our hands,” said Warner exec Alan Horn, with perhaps a gigantic understatement. By way of reassurance, he added, “No one wants to turn this into a bland, sanitized studio movie. This is a very special piece of material and we're just trying to get it right."

-That just doesnt make sense. The studios want to sugercoat the film and censor Spike Jones but then say that they still wanna keep his vision of the film??? They're killing his version.

But i do love this part:

"Goldstein repeats rumors that children cried and ran out of test screenings"

Now i really wanna see that version!

and this is a good thing? or bad ??

[NoirFan]

From Rolling Stone:

No film project has enthralled the indie-blogiverse more than Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers' adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are. But in the past year, the film has been plagued by rumors: that Jonze's version was too dark, that the studio hated it, that Jonze might take his name off the movie. Here, the media-shy Jonze finally sets the record straight on one of 2009's most anticipated films.

Fans were thrilled that you and Eggers were collaborating on WTWTA. But then it was reported that Warner Bros. was concerned about an early version, that it wasn't the mass-audience movie they wanted. What happened?
Well, the editing process wasn't always fun, but in the end, we've made the movie we set out to make. All the reasons you were excited about it, those were the reasons they [Warner Bros.] were uncomfortable with it. It isn't what they're familiar with. But they've become comfortable and embraced it. In the end, they let me finish my movie.

They had to have known if they hired you and Eggers, it was going to be unusual.
It's just not the kind of movie that they make on their own. In most movies about kids, there's, like, a movie reality: The conflict is a movie conflict, the kid is a movie kid. So when you see behavior or a tone that's not like that, it took them a while to embrace that.

What specifically did you and the producers argue about?
You know, it's like talking about a couple that's been fighting and going to counseling. What matters now is that we made it through all of that — and it's probably better not to rehash what happened in counseling. I got to make my movie. It is true to the intention of what I set out to do.

What was your intention?
I wanted to make a movie that felt true to me and my experience of being a kid, trying to understand the world and people around me, trying to understand the relationships and wild emotions inside me and the people I was close to. As a kid, there's no road map to navigate any of that. Basically, I wanted to take this nine-year-old kid seriously as a person who is trying to understand the world and himself.

Some early reports said that the film might be too intense for young kids.
We're walking that line of making something that's intense, because kids are so open that something that's just kind of intense is really intense to an eight-year-old. But any rumor gets so blown out of proportion.

Is it a film for young kids?
It's not for all four-year-olds. It might not be right for one four-year-old but could work for another. When Maurice wrote the book, Max was five. When I started, it felt like the natural age for Max was eight or nine. So the movie is different in that way.

Is it true there was a moment you almost walked away?
It goes back to the couples counseling. There was definitely a point in time when they were sleeping on the sofa.

Has Maurice Sendak seen it?
Maurice is happy with it. It was important to me that he felt it was honest. To know that he is happy and didn't think it was pandering or cutesy . . . that passed his barometer test of honesty. That meant a lot.

What was the biggest lesson of all this?
I think I was sort of willfully naive about how hard it was going to be, given the size of the movie, the technical difficulty, that it's a movie starring a kid, shot on locations. But I think it's important to stay naive through all of that. If you make decisions based on how hard they're going to be, then it could be a mistake. So I hope I can be as naive to how hard it is next time. But I need to sleep for a year before I can do anything again.

[Ronnie Dobbs]

Couldn't be much dakrer than The Corpse Bride. That was a really dark movie for kids.

[tylergfoster]

I didn't think The Corpse Bride was THAT dark. I think Gremlins and Beetlejuice, among many great family-friendly or PG rated films from the 1980's are pretty dark. Which is exactly what makes them rock.

[pinata242]

Hey, if the author is pleased with the adaptation, who are we to argue? It sounds promising to me.

[Solid Snake PAC]

ditto

[starseed1981]

Originally Posted by pinata242

Hey, if the author is pleased with the adaptation, who are we to argue? It sounds promising to me.

Well said.

[NoirFan]

Two more pics:

[NoirFan]

New pic from EW:

[NoirFan]

[JPRaup]

Story

Apparently the skateboard company that Jonze co-founded, Girl Skateboards Company, will be releasing a limited series of skateboards featuring the monsters from the film adaptation:

[riotinmyskull]

classic henson designs....

[RyoHazuki]

Those monsters look amazing. This movie can't come out soon enough.