'Where The Wild Things Are:' Is Spike Jonze's Adaptation Doomed?

There has been an alarmed buzz building across the Internet this week and it is centered around a little boy in a wolf suit.

Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beloved Where the Wild Things Are has been shrouded in secrecy for a year. Everyone has seemed content to leave it that way because, frankly, it seemed to be a sure thing. A classic book, an edgy, young director and a script penned by the brilliant Dave Eggers -- it seems like the recipe for an instant and intelligent classic.

Or not. Footage of Max frolicking with the monsters surfaced this week (and was just as quickly yanked on many sites, including our own, by Warner Bros) to a decidedly mixed reaction from fans. While it was hailed as being accurate, "tone wise," by Ain't It Cool News' Moriarty, Jonze quickly did damage control. In an e-mail from Warners to several outlets, Jonze dismissed the footage as a "clip [that] doesn't look or feel anything like the movie." If the test footage is nothing like the film, which film did Moriarty see? And why does it match this poster a spy snapped at a convention back in June 2007?
The bad buzz didn't stop there. Slashfilm has reports from a test screening that left children crying and begging to be removed from the theatre. And now reports have surfaced that Warner Bros is extremely unhappy with Jonze's final cut and want it to be entirely reshot. CHUD's Devin Faraci reports that the studio hates just about everything in the finished product -- the young actor playing Max, the tone, and the Jonze/Eggers script which is being called "subversive." Interestingly, Faraci had a friend at the disastrous screening who loved the film, and good reports do continue to pour out. Given the visionary pair-up at the helm of this, the film is doubtless very unconventional -- and that could be the kiss of death for a children's film dependent on massive audiences and merchandising.

Hopefully, stories of dissent at Warner Bros. have been greatly exaggerated, and Jonze has done this beautiful book justice. No child should be left crying at a screening, obviously, but I rather hope the film is a bit dark and mysterious. The lush illustrations lend itself to such an adaptation. It seems to me that today's children, who have been introduced to the uncanny at an early age through Harry Potter and Studio Ghibli, would be perfectly capable of handling it. My own generation survived The Dark Crystal and The Neverending Story, and came out better for it.