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November 18, 2008 by Travis Jonker

Spike Jonze on ‘Where the Wild Things Are’

November 18, 2008 by Travis Jonker   5 comments

wildstill

Seems like there hasn’t been much news on the “Where the Wild Things Are” movie front lately.  Last I heard the whole thing was getting scrapped. Things changed Tuesday when Ain’t It Cool News posted their interview with the film’s director, Spike Jonze. Apparently, the film is back on track. That whole “scrapping the project” thing? Says Mr. Jonze,

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It’s sort of like they were expecting a boy and I gave birth to a girl. So they just needed their time to sort that out and figure out how they were going to learn to love their new daughter…It just took a lot longer. And that was hard, but you know, in the end I got to make my movie.

Reading more of the interview, it sounds like Mr. Jonze is approaching the project with authenticity in mind:

I think it just started from that feeling, that it could feel like you were there with them, like Max was there with them, and not just in some fantasy movie.

The image above is the most hot off the presses look at the film. I have to admit that all of the still images I’ve seen (and even the controversial, work in progress video clip (which you can watch here)) have succeeded in getting me excited about the finished product. I think the appeal is summed up best by A Fuse #8 Production, who said upon seeing the rough cut video: “Imagine it. A children’s movie with quiet moments. QUIET moments! It fair boggles the mind.” So true.

One Question remains: how do you take your dissection of a children’s book turned into a movie? We’ve got three options here.

The Full Interview from Ain’t It Cool News

The Highlights from SlashFilm.com

The Complete Link Roundup from BuzzFeed

(Thanks to BuzzFeed and A Fuse #8 Production for links)

Update: I noticed that the outstanding Educating Alice beat me to the punch, click here to read her post.

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About Travis Jonker

Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.

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Comments

  1. tara says

    November 19, 2008 at 1:46 am

    Glad to find your blog. I’ll be reading it regularly from now on.

  2. teacherninja says

    November 19, 2008 at 8:55 am

    I don’t know. That earlier clip didn’t grab me but it didn’t push me away either. I love jonze’s work and realize this’ll be all “meta” and whatnot, so it doesn’t bother me the way hearing about Tim Burton doing Alice bothers me. I hope that one turns out great because I’ve yet to see a great Alice movie (except for maybe Alice in the Cities) but I was hopeful for that Charlie movie and well, we know how that went.

  3. Scope Notes says

    November 19, 2008 at 9:27 am

    I agree that the rough cut wasn’t awe-inspiring or anything, but I liked the overall tone. I get the same feeling from the official movie stills that have been coming out. In the full interview, Jonze and the interviewer discuss “The Cat in the Hat” film and how it fell woefully short of the mark. I’m hoping that Jonze has the talent to take another classic and turn it into something worth watching.

Trackbacks

  1. 2008 Children’s Lit: The Year in Miscellanea « 100 Scope Notes says:
    December 17, 2008 at 10:04 am

    […] Are” film. Picture book adaptations are not easy to do and are rarely successful, but with Spike Jonze at the helm, I’m going to keep hope alive for this […]

  2. The Scoop: ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ Movie Poster « 100 Scope Notes says:
    March 18, 2009 at 2:33 am

    […] 18, 2009 in Entertainment News The film has been a long time in coming, but it appears that the Spike Jonze directed film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are will […]

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