I guess it’s old news that the Spike Jonze directed adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s very famous children’s book Where the Wild Things Are got pulled by Warner Brothers. Some speculation and rumors were going around saying that the studio decided Jonze’s version was too scary and creepy for little kids. In other words they want a G rating so they can make more cash.
Of course you’d expect something directed by Jonze to be a little bit weird, and the original book wasn’t exactly your typical bedtime story. A lot of “kids” movies and shows on t.v. that I watched when I was little were pretty messed up…and look how I turned out.
I specifically remember this one episode of the Muppet Show with Liza Minelli (scary, right?) that was this murder mystery where the lights in the theater kept going out, and when they’d come back on, one of the muppet cast would be slumped over, murdered, with a knife in their back. Pretty grim. Or what about Thriller?! That shit ran the t.v. all day long. I was around 5 or 6 when that video came out and I would run out the room everytime MJ’s eyes turned yellow.
The new news surrounding the 75 million Wild Things picture is that Jonze is still directing, and that he didn’t pull his name from the flick. Apparently he was asked to re-shoot a bunch of it to make it more kid friendly by the studio and that didn’t go over too well.
I personally can’t wait until this film drops…and if the re-shoot isn’t too corny, it’s going to be amazing. The monsters will all be portrayed by huge puppet costumes, with digitally animated faces, while the character Max will be played by an actor named Max Records. The costumes and suits were created in The Jim Henson creature shop, and are sure to be incredible. It’s cool to see real puppets and prosthetics making their way back into films and film makers are relying less and less on digital fx, which always come off looking well…digital. It makes sense to use digi to animate the monster faces because it is difficult to get a decent range of expression with just a puppet. The film is set to open in 2009.
-beans
