Spike Jonze on ‘Where the Wild Things Are’
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.
Filed under: Reviews
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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Glad to find your blog. I’ll be reading it regularly from now on.
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.
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.