Sunday, March 30, 2008

Spike Jonze Gets It

Abuzz on many different film blogs, IMDB message boards and other websites are the reports of a drastic change to the Spike Jonze adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. Rumors abound that Spike Jonze's cut of the Maurice Sendak adaptation (penned by Dave Eggers!!) is possibly going to be lost to something cutesy and more kid oriented. First off, here is a clip from the Jonze version to show you just what he is going to do with the story.



Although this is not a scene from the movie, this is the style of the creatures that Jonze is going for. The costumes are from the Jim Henson Workshop and only the faces are digitally altered. Even though this is some early test footage, this looks far and away better than any re-imagination might look. The loss of the costumes for completely digital characters would ruin the film. This clip alone looks more imaginative than any children's film or any other fantasy film in years.

In this article, we see how the studio may re-shoot the film. Basically, we would lose this interesting vision to something cutesy and cuddly. The story of Where the Wild Things Are is a scary tale and it's supposed to be. To change that would be another travesty caused by the film studios. Spike Jonze gets it. He gets the point of the novel and he seems to be interested in doing something unique (as he usually does.)

Let's hope this doesn't get changed and ruined. I am really looking forward to this project.

2 comments:

leo said...

"It doesn't look like a kids' movie, it's not all bright colours. It's got a real dry look. It was an adult-oriented movie disguised as a kids' film. If they make it cute and fluffy for four-year-olds, we'll lose something really interesting."

Yikes.

Unfortch, you know what happens when people do something good and interesting, but the studios don't like. I really don't see this ending well. From Brazil to A.I., there's a bad history of cutting art for a cheap feel good story.

Paul Tsikitas said...

Seriously. Look how awesome and true to Sendak's art this looks like?! And it's just test footage. God I hope it doesn't get effed with.