Where the Wild Things Are

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Photographs courtesy Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

It’s become routine media hyperbole to dub a new movie “highly anticipated,” but the label is plainly true for Where the Wild Things Are. Plans have been in the works for decades to bring Maurice Sendak’s beloved kids’ tale about a boy’s fecund imaginary world to the big screen. After Disney and then Universal aborted projects, Warner Bros. announced in 2007 that it would release the film—directed by Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich), produced by Tom Hanks, and featuring the voices of Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara and Lauren Ambrose, plus soundtrack music by Arcade Fire and Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. What a concept!

Still, the project took a while to hatch. With the blessing of Sendak and a script cowritten by Dave Eggers, Jonze took liberties with the original book—it has, after all, just 21 pages of brief text—to expand the narrative of the hero, Max, and the Wild Things. After early test screenings, there were rumors in the blogosphere of frightened young viewers, disputes between Jonze and the studio, even plans to reshoot the whole film. But by all credible accounts, the director’s cut will be the one released in theaters.

“I think most of those things are just rumors,” says the film’s 12-year-old star, Max Records, in a phone interview. “There might have been a period when Warner Bros. thought this film might turn out to be too scary to market to kids. But in the end, Spike has come through and he’s made his movie, and Maurice’s movie, and not anybody else’s. I think the film betrays nothing in the original book, and it’s fun, and it’s almost perfect in every aspect.” (Yes, this is one very articulate kid.)

Records is a newcomer to film work. In his hometown of Portland, Oregon, he had parts in a couple of music videos (one for Death Cab for Cutie) before auditioning for the Wild Things lead character, also named Max. “Spike likes to just throw people into a situation they aren’t familiar with and see what happens,” Records says. “He’s looking for spontaneous emotions and not just an actor acting. He wants somebody’s actual feelings.”

Records spent much of his screen time playing off actors in big monster suits. (The celeb voices and a bit of CG enhancement were added later.) “Spike would create things off-camera for me to react to,” he says. “So, like, if I was supposed to act surprised and sort of awed, he would have two of the Wild Things off-camera having a Life Savers fight or something. It was great.”

Most of the film was shot during a five-month stint in 2006 in the backcountry of Australia, Records says. “Later, we did some reshooting in L.A., because we had about fifteen hours of footage. We had to cut some stuff and replace other stuff.”

Jonze has been mum about the reshoots and disputes. In a video on the film’s website, the director plays up his collaboration with Sendak. “I definitely didn’t want to do it unless Maurice was comfortable with it,” he says. “I didn’t want to take it and make it into something that betrayed what it is to him.”In the same video, Sendak supports the new version of his tale: “There will be controversy about this,” he says. “But the film has an entire emotional, visual, spiritual life which is as valid as the book.”

Opens Oct 16. Find showtimes.

• Wild Things Week in NYC Week
• "Where the Wild Things Are: Original Drawings by Maurice Sendak" review
• Film articles
• Articles from this issue