It’s been a bad week for Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are adaptation. Footage leaked online of a test for the facial animation that had a bizarre tone, seemingly lending truth to the rumors that this movie is not necessarily for children and has a very dark tone.
Test screen audiences hated Max Records, the kid cast as Max and the Dave Eggers/Jonze script isn’t making any friends amongst the studio execs at Warners who certainly were expecting a kid’s movie.
Now, CHUD is spreading a rumor that Warners is thinking about reshooting the entire $75 million dollar movie and blaming it on technical issues. There are technical issues with the animation of the Wild Things’ faces, but nothing that requires a whole re-shoot.
Right now, industry gossipers are trying to find out if Spike Jonze has final cut, or if the studio will just force him out, dump the Eggers script (and tie-in novel) and start anew with a dumbed-down Things.
This is all speculation at this point, but there is some informed speculation abound.
Writes SlashFilm:
Early audience reports from test screenings late last year were prototypically alarming, calling the film “dark,” “not suitable for small children,” complaining about “some desert place” et al. But Maurice Sendak’s book is, as many /Film commenters have smartly pointed out, about monsters, imagination and the free realm where kids play. Sendak is also said to be on board as a consultant to Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggers on the film, and Eggers, the co-founder of McSweeney’s and a literary darling, is even writing a spin-off novel to accompany the film.
Adds CHUD:
Can Warner Bros force Spike back to do the sort of massive reshoots they want? I’ve been on the phone to Warner Bros and Legendary and have not been able to get official statements about the status of the film, or whether Spike has final cut. A less reliable source has told me that he does in fact have final cut, which means that if he doesn’t want to go back and do the reshoots he doesn’t have to - but Warner Bros could still fire him and assign the reshoots to someone more compliant. Spike has a crew he likes to work with and they have not yet been told to gear up for additional shooting although they do know that it could be coming.
The scary thing is that this wouldn’t be unprecedented for Warner Bros. Just a couple of years ago they scrapped Paul Schrader’s Exorcist prequel and sent Renny Harlin out to remake the thing using the same sets and some of the same actors. Both versions ended up being terrible, but this studio has shown their willingness to do something just this nutty before.
It sounds like we are on the brink of losing a truly magical film that doesn’t pander to the audience that will go see it and might even introduce children to…gasp!…actual cinema at an early age.
Heaven forbid we give the next generation a chance to be known for liking something that isn’t Hanna Montana, High School Musical or VeggieTales.
