There hasn’t been a lot of news regarding the film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are in recent weeks. This probably has something to do with Warner Bros pushing the release date back to October 2009 right around the same time as a rumor was started that Warners was going to have the whole thing re-shot.
Spike Jonze, current director, seems to really have something special on his hands that is going to get destroyed if it is re-shot. Especially considering that Jonze will most likely be replaced as a director on the project should the radical re-shooting be decided on.
Mum has been the word on if Spike is just going to toil away and polish his movie to perfection over the next 19 months, or if Warners just put baby in a corner until they figure out what to do with her.
The good news is that one of the Wild Things has spoken up to MTV about the project. That particular Wild Thing being Forest Badass Whitaker.
“I play Ira, he puts the holes in the trees,” the Oscar-winner grinned. “I have a wife and kid, and we’re the only family unit inside [the land of the Wild Things]. It’s a good movie. I saw an early cut of it. I brought my kids to see it, and I was really impressed.”
That’s you basic celebrity comment, but Whitaker is an Oscar winner, so shouldn’t he have a deeper opinion? The man has some gravity as far as pull around H-Wood.
Luckily Forest has his opinions
“[The dark scenes] are the point of the movie, and I hope that they maintain that point, because I think children can identify with a character who is upset. …[Max] rolls by himself, no father figure; this is a single family home,” he continued, with passion. “His mother ends up having a boyfriend that becomes like a monster to him…people have to build trust with the people their parent starts to date…These are real issues that the character deals with, and I hope that [the filmmakers] continue to explore them, because kids need to see that; they need to see that other kids are dealing with it.”
“The thing is, it’s one thing to read [scary stuff] in a book, but when you see an itty-bitty kid running alongside a 10-foot-giant on the side of a cliff, it gets intense. But that’s the point, because we’re representing the things inside of the kid. They represent his struggles, either him being too angry or being confused, or not feeling like he belongs. They’re a gargantuan extension of the way he’s feeling inside.”
You tell ‘em Forest! If nothing else, also tell them that it’s plain stupid to reshoot a $75 million dollar movie.
Still no word from Jonze or anyone else on the inside of the project, so stop asking us when Dave sees you on the street.
IMG: SplashNews
