Where The Wild Things Are (2009)(Warner Bros)

Source: Warner Bros (Press Materials)

Innovative director Spike Jonze collaborates with celebrated author Maurice Sendak to bring one of the most beloved books of all time to the big screen in "Where the Wild Things Are," a classic story about childhood and the places we go to figure out the world we live in.

The film tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to where the Wild Things are. Max lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions.

The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule. When Max is crowned king, he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds, though, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated than he originally thought.

"I didn't set out to make a children's movie; I set out to make a movie about childhood," says director Spike Jonze, whose big-screen adaptation of the captivating Maurice Sendak classic Where the Wild Things Are was truly a labor of love. In it, he further explores the themes Sendak introduced and which Jonze believes remain relevant to every generation. "It's about what it's like to be eight or nine years old and trying to figure out the world, the people around you, and emotions that are sometimes unpredictable or confusing, which is really the challenge of negotiating relationships all your life," he says. "It's no different at that age."

"Where the Wild Things Are" offers a fresh look, and for many of us, a look back, into the many facets of childhood. It invites audiences of all ages to join in the discovery and challenge and pure feral joy of a young boy's brave journey to the island of the Wild Things, a special place that's sure to stir thoughts of the wild things that live in all of us.

"In a way, it's an action movie starring a nine-year-old. There's a lot of physical mayhem like dirt clod fights and rampaging in the forest," says Jonze. Indeed, the island offers up every youngster's fantasy: the freedom to run and jump and howl, to build and destroy and wrestle and throw things as far as he can... most of all, to do only the things he wants to do, with no one saying he can't. Resplendent in his wolf costume, young Max soon becomes King of the Wild Things by proving his superior ferocity over the giant creatures who live there. But it's an uneasy reign because the Wild Things are just that--wild--and there is always the possibility they might decide to eat him after all, with their great sharp teeth. Being king just might not be as easy as Max imagined.

At the same time, the story follows Max's first steps toward growing up as he becomes aware of the complex relationships the individual Wild Things have with each other and with him, and how doing everything he wants isn't always the best choice. Told with unabashed honesty from a child's point of view, "Where the Wild Things Are" reveals Max's increasing understanding of his own feelings and the feelings of others.

The film began with Jonze's abiding affection and respect for the book, written and illustrated by Sendak, another strong believer in not talking down to young people. Published in 1963, it earned a Caldecott Medal and went on to touch millions of readers worldwide, perpetually ranked by Publishers Weekly as one of the 10 all-time best-selling books for children since the 1970s.

Its enduring appeal, notes Jonze, is in how it "taps into genuine feelings that kids have and takes them seriously without pandering. Kids are given so much material that's not honest, so when they find a story like this it really gets their attention. I remember myself, at that age, being so eager to hear that other kids were going through the same things I was and having similar thoughts."

Max Records, now twelve, made his film debut as Max in "Where the Wild Things Are" and agrees. "The book reflects what it's actually like to be a kid. It's a book that could not only be respected by kids but it really gets to the heart of everything you feel growing up and even beyond that."

It was that idea of "beyond" that led Jonze to realize what he could contribute to the story. Adapting the slim volume into a feature film gave him the opportunity to take the adventure further, to delve deeper into Max's world, the unknown terrain of the island and the impetus that brings him there. He could examine more fully the Wild Things themselves, those volatile and endlessly expressive creatures which are "the wild emotions inside of Max and inside all of us."

From that point, the possibilities were limitless.

Jonze selected acclaimed novelist and fellow Wild Things fan Dave Eggers to collaborate with him on the screenplay, though Eggers had never written for film. This did not surprise Vincent Landay, Jonze's longtime collaborator and a producer on "Where the Wild Things Are," who offers, "Spike's instinct about Dave was based on knowing him as a person and knowing he had the right sensibility and the right take on what he wanted out of these characters. Spike likes to put people into situations where they might not have been in before because you often end up with a fresher result."

Before long, the two met with Sendak in his Connecticut home to go over their plans for the movie. Unquestionably, they wanted to keep it true to the author's values and intention; otherwise they would not attempt it. Of their initial discussions, Eggers remembers, "We wanted to make a movie that didn't look down at a kid but got inside him. Most kids in movies are 'de-fanged.' They have no wildness. What we figured out pretty quickly was that we all clearly remembered what it was like to be a boy, to be a little wild and get into trouble. We understood who Max was. We didn't need to focus-group it or ask a child psychologist about what a child thinks or believes; we knew it in our guts."

What ensued was an old-fashioned brainstorming process of two first-time screenplay writers locked in a room, hammering out ideas and dialogue together, acting out characters and melding their very different methods. "Dave is a very disciplined writer. If he gets stuck, he puts in a placeholder and keeps going whereas, for me, if it doesn't feel right I will stay in that place until I find what works. I don't want to let it go," Jonze admits, to which Eggers adds, "Spike's method is the definition of organic. I often saw myself as the facilitator, helping to put his ideas on paper and fill it out."

"First and foremost I was concerned with who Max was and what was going on in his life," says Jonze. "I wanted to make a movie that takes kids seriously but Maurice said, 'Make sure you don't just take the heavy side of the kid seriously; take his imagination seriously, his sense of joy.' We never set any rules about whether it would be for kids or adults. We just went where it took us."

Serving as a producer on the film, Sendak was fully involved from those early conversations and throughout production. He says, "Spike immediately had his own point of view. I trusted him. I knew he had a vivid sense of what the book was about in his head, which was the same with me when I wrote it.

"He's given me a renewal of respect for young people," the author continues, saying that so few people he encounters have Jonze's "bite," nor his interest "in history, or the world they came from. They just want to be what they want to be, without the luxury of learning about it. Spike is like a throwback, in that he reminds me of the young people I remember from the 1960s; kind of crazy but in the most wonderful, adventurous way. For me, the 60s was an exuberant and splendid time."

It was an inspired creative match, attests producer John Carls, who has worked with Sendak for 17 years, since the two formed Wild Things Productions in 1992. "He and Spike are very similar as artists. They're both bold and innovative thinkers, constantly challenging the status quo; they're both hard-working perfectionists who pour everything into their work; and they're both in touch with their childlike selves, which gives them a perspective that connects authentically with children."

Ultimately, the film was a combination of their stories and recollections. Says Jonze, "Maurice based the book on themes and feelings from his life, his childhood. I was picking up the baton."

"Spike is an incredibly gifted young man and courageous," says Sendak. "He didn't do an homage to the book; he did something that belongs to him, which makes him a real filmmaker and a real artist. I love the movie. It's original. It has an entire emotional, spiritual, visual life which is as valid as the book. He's turned it into his 'Wild Things' without giving up mine, in a brilliant, modern, fantastical way which takes nothing from my book but enhances and enriches it. They are two very different works of art and I like them both."

See Also: Is "Where the Wild Things Are" A Modern "Godzilla's Revenge"? / 'Where The Wild Things Are' - Creating A Mythical World To Match The Book / Sneak Previews: Where The Wild Things Are, Whiteout, The Box, Sherlock Holmes And Ninja Assassin / Sneak Preview - Where The Wild Things Are

Is "Where the Wild Things Are" A Modern "Godzilla's Revenge"?

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Excerpt: Melancholy to the Max: 'Where the Wild Things Are' - A Review / By: John Beifuss

As you probably know, I generally don't post reviews from other writers, outside the MIN staff and friends, but I found this review on "Where the Wild Things Are" by John Beifuss for the "The Bloodshot Eye" very interesting.

To be specific, I found his comparison of Spike Jonze's latest movie to the 1968 film "Godzilla's Revenge" very interesting.

After reading the piece, the whole thing made sense, I mean, the stories are both very similar, as in, both feature a young boy who escapes to a mythical place to come to grips with his 'real-life' troubles.

My mind started gelling, and I began to wonder, if indeed, "Wild Things" wasn't in some way inspired by "Revenge"? Then came the 'which came first?' question.

Come to find out that the original children's book, that the new film is based on, was written way back in 1963 by American author Maurice Sendak.

That got me thinking again. Could it be that the Japanese producer Tomoyuki Tanaka and famed director Ishirō Honda were inspired by the work of Sendak, when coming up with the story for "Godzilla's Revenge"?

After doing some mild research, I could find no citations in regards to "Revenge" that linked the two together.

So I guess this is simply a matter for speculation.

Here is a copy of the paragraph from the John Beifuss that got me all cerebral:

After a fight with his mother, Max runs into the night, until he reaches a boat that takes him to the forested island Where the Wild Things Are. These seven beasts speak in the voices and accents of typical, kvetching adults, but their petty jealousies, shifting alliances, flare-ups of temper and playtime injuries are childlike. Faithfully designed to resemble Sendak's illustrations, the furry, pot-bellied monsters are played by actors in huge suits created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop; computer animation, however, was used to create the expressions that crease the broad faces on their oversized heads. (One may be reminded of the work of Sid & Marty Krofft, but the sensibility is more Japanese; Jonze may have been influenced by the "Yokai Monsters" movies of the 1960s, or even 1969's "All Monsters Attack," in which a young boy travels to Monster Island and befriends several of Toho Studios' man-in-suit creatures. In fact, "Where the Wild Things Are" could be described as a sort of emo "Godzilla's Revenge," as "All Monsters Attack" was renamed for American release.)

See Also: 'Where The Wild Things Are' - Creating A Mythical World To Match The Book / Sneak Previews: Where The Wild Things Are, Whiteout, The Box, Sherlock Holmes And Ninja Assassin / Sneak Preview - Where The Wild Things Are

'Where The Wild Things Are' - Creating A Mythical World To Match The Book

Source: Warner Bros

When it came to design, what mattered most about the Wild Things' big-screen debut was that they had the depth of feeling, humor, ferocity and tenderness the story required. They had to be alive.

Author, and producer on the film, Maurice Sendak was offered "the last word on what they looked like and how they moved. Yet, at the same time, I didn't want to lock them into place so that they were stuck rather than creatively excited by the prospect of what the monsters looked like," the author said. "When I was doing the book, nobody bugged me. Nobody said the monsters should look like this or that, because nobody knew what they should look like."

Directer Spike Jonze and producer Vincent Landay first delved into the world of creature movies, the history of suit performances and animatronics, to see what they liked or didn't like, and why. It was hard to find a direct parallel. Research with designers and effects companies turned up options that Jonze deemed "too troll-like or monster-like," or sometimes the opposite, "too cute." Repeatedly, they were advised toward full CGI and cautioned that recreating the book's proportions in real space would be a nearly insurmountable challenge. But they never gave up.

A friend referred them to artist Sonny Gerasimowicz, whose early sketches conveyed the blend of humor, whimsy and pathos they were looking for. Together, they experimented with color, textures and fur and from there moved into the model stage.

The Jim Henson Company and its legendary Creature Shop in Los Angeles built and refined the enormous costumes over a six-month period before shipping them to Australia, at which point Sydney-based Dave Elsey and an Australian team of costumers continued with on-site adjustments and reconfigurations to meet the unique demands of location shooting, such as one Wild Thing hurling another into the air, an effort involving wire work, pulleys and special rigs.

Peter Brooke, Creative Supervisor for the Creature Shop, begins, "We scanned the maquette, then enlarged the head to actual size and modeled that in foam, covered with clay. We re-sculpted the body of the maquette without fur, and were left with the understructure. Then we enlarged the pattern off the maquette and cut it out of foam. Within a week, we managed to get the basic shape and size of the character."

Thinking from the inside out, he continues, "We tried to transfer most of the weight of the costume to the hips of the performer. Basically, we approached the project as if these were huge puppets that were going to be puppeteered from inside, as opposed to thinking of them as huge costumes."

Elsey then adds, "Over the skeleton is the muscle suit, which gives the creature shape. When the actors flex their arms the muscles actually flex; when they lift, the rib cage will expand. That's what we call 'soft mechanics.' Fabricating these things is a real art form. The actor inside has to be capable of moving around and doing everything in the costume seemingly effortlessly. 'Soft mechanics' has been done before but this is on a whole different scale. The costumes are an amazing combination of engineering and art."

The final touch was enabling the Wild Things' features to match their emotions. Rather than using animatronic models, which would have caused lip-sync problems due to the creatures' enormous mouths, Jonze opted to enhance their expressions in post-production with computer animation, led by animation and visual effects supervisor Daniel Jeannette.

Says Jeannette, "Even with the static images, you could already see a lot of the impact they would have. We looked at the film and it was so beautiful we tried to animate the faces without creating a completely CG version of them. Instead, we did only the movement of the face in CGI."

Jonze clarifies, "Basically, they are creating 3D models of each creature's face in the computer. They used wire frame models to animate; then, the animation of those wire frames dictated the faces that were shot on camera. It's as if they were able to slide that wire animation under the faces of the puppets. Then that animation moved the fur on the faces that we shot on set."

"It looks real," Jeannette sums up, "because it's based on a real image."

One special costume that fell outside the purview of the Henson designers and Dave Elsey was Max's second skin and alter ego: the wolf suit he wears while making mischief at home and that later helps assert his animal nature over the Wild Things. That suit--plus 56 individual versions of it, was provided by costume designer Casey Storm, based on a drawing by Gerasimowicz that aged up the footed pajamas of the book into something a boy of eight or nine might wear. Storm's design included flocked whiskers, bendable ears, broken buttons, snaps under the chin to keep Max's "head" on tight through the wildest of rumpuses, and fingerless gloves.

Since Max is always in the wolf outfit, Records needed an entire wardrobe of them in various stages of wear: some dirty and some pristine, some warmer and others cooler in hue to match the tone of certain scenes and the camera's different light filters.

"When you think of the setting for the characters in the book, they're in some type of woods, on an island, a beach," says production designer K.K. Barrett, marking his third collaboration with Jonze on "Where the Wild Things Are." "We wanted the environment we put them in to be gritty and realistic, with natural elements. We wanted it to feel like somewhere no one has visited before."

After considering places as diverse as Argentina, Hawaii, New Zealand, California and the Southern U.S., the filmmakers found a home for the Wild Things in the hills, quarries and shoreline areas of outer Melbourne, at the southern tip of Australia. Here, says Jonze, "It felt like the edge of the world, on this rocky cliff." The area's barren forest proved a perfect graphic background for the action and suited the film's overall palette.

In keeping with the idea that they were discovering, along with Max, the creatures' natural habitat, Jonze and director of photography Lance Acord gave the island scenes a lived-in quality. Says Acord, "We needed a certain amount of texture and lack of resolution, so we were under-exposing a fair amount and letting the shadows go quite dark. The colors are less saturated than if you have a sharp, high-contrast negative."

The downside of working in a place where your nearest neighbor is Antarctica is that the production had to contend with bracing and often unpredictable winds and a rough ocean, which Acord vividly recalls, describing a scene in which the voyager Max pilots his boat alone toward the unknown shore. "I was shooting with a hand-held in the back of the boat. Suddenly we heard people in the other Zodiac yelling. A set of rogue waves was coming through, breaking at around 10 to 12 feet. They crashed over our boat and knocked the camera into the water. It started dragging along the ocean floor and, unfortunately, it was tied around the weight belt I had on, so was dragging me down with it. I struggled to get the belt off before being drowned by my own camera."

Acord made maximum use of hand-held cameras throughout the shoot because, notes Jonze, "We wanted it to feel as if this movie is being told through Max's eyes."

That point of view was a constant theme and extended to elements of production design. Upon his arrival at the island, Max finds the Wild Things happily demolishing their own homes, their immediate joy at wanton destruction prevailing over their less-immediate need for a place to sleep. Later, as their King, Max launches construction on the Ultimate Fort, in which they will all live together. This meant Barrett had to design huts and a fort that that could withstand some action but also look like something sprung from a child's drawings and built by a crew of unskilled and impatient monsters.

After abandoning early attempts as too sophisticated, they finally hit upon the perfect formula: a circle. "It took a long path to get to an idea that was actually very simple," Jonze admits. "The round hut, the round door with the round floor; there's no shape simpler than a circle." Adds Barrett, "The circle-based bird's nest kept showing up in our sketches. We figured if a bird could build it, they could build it. When you look at all the twigs and lines in nests, and then look at Maurice's drawings, it just made sense."

At more than 40-feet high, the fort was a formidable undertaking. Twice. Says Jonze, "We built two forts in Australia. The first one we built on the desert location in order to shoot exterior shots and the second one was built on a stage to shoot the interiors." Much of the physical fort was made of gravity-defying molded foam, to offset the structure's outsized scale, and painted to look like a weave of sticks, with actual sticks substituted in close-up.

The production included upwards of 400 people working on three separate stages and one location, with a shooting schedule divided between first unit, second unit, reduced unit and puppet unit--all of which evolved on a daily basis.

New challenges arose regularly as might be expected while working in rough terrain with actors navigating nine-foot costumes with giant heads. It took 45 minutes of prep time prior to each shot to clear a path the actor would then tread on faith. "But," Jonze specifies, "you'd have to make a path that wouldn't look like a path on camera, that looked just like the forest floor. We had to fill in potholes, and all the roots and rocks would be taken out so there wouldn't be anything to trip on."

On-set art director Tim Disney remembers some of the shoot's other inherent challenges: "250 people's footprints in the sand dunes that had to be gone by morning. Could we bring in choppers to 'buzz' them out? A hundred tons of kelp was getting in the way of Max's island departure. Do we get boats to drag it back into the ocean or pull it out? If Spike needed a forest down the side of a mountain, he got it."

See Also: Sneak Previews: Where The Wild Things Are, Whiteout, The Box, Sherlock Holmes And Ninja Assassin / Sneak Preview - Where The Wild Things Are

Sneak Previews: Where The Wild Things Are, Whiteout, The Box, Sherlock Holmes And Ninja Assassin

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Source: Warner Bros

With the summer movie season coming to a close, most of the major motion picture studios are starting to focus on the next big movie release window that happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Most studios choose to display their upcoming film projects for the coming holiday season and the next summer at the San Diego Comic Con, though try as they may, studios sometimes can't get some of their films ready for the yearly media circus.

Such is the case here, where Warner Bros has just released a big batch of info to the press on their upcoming films, which will be released over the next few months.

Here some photos and synopsis for "Where The Wild Things Are", "Whiteout", "The Box", "Sherlock Holmes" and "Ninja Assassin":

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
In theatres on October 16

(Warner Bros. Pictures/Legendary Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures)

Director: Spike Jonze
Writers: Screenplay by Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers
Based on the book by Maurice Sendak
Producers: Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, Maurice Sendak, John Carls, Vincent Landay
Executive Producers: Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Bruce Berman

Cast: Catherine Keener, Max Records, Mark Ruffalo, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker

Adventure. Innovative director Spike Jonze collaborates with celebrated author Maurice Sendak to bring one of the most beloved books of all time to the big screen in "Where the Wild Things Are," a classic story about childhood and the places we go to figure out the world we live in. The film tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to where the Wild Things are. Max lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions. The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule. When Max is crowned king, he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds, though, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated than he originally thought.

This film has been rated PG for mild thematic elements, some adventure action and brief language.

http://www.wherethewildthingsare.com/

WHITEOUT
In theatres on September 11

Director: Dominic Sena
Writers: Screenplay by Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber and Chad Hayes & Carey W. Hayes
Based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber, published by Oni Press
Producers: Joel Silver, Susan Downey, David Gambino
Executive Producers: Steve Richards, Don Carmody, Greg Rucka

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Columbus Short, Tom Skerritt, Alex O'Loughlin, Shawn Doyle

Action Thriller. Carrie Stetko, the lone U.S. Marshal assigned to Antarctica, is investigating the continent's first murder, which draws her into a shocking mystery. Now, with only three days until winter, Carrie must solve the crime before Antarctica is plunged into darkness and she is stranded with the killer.

This film has been rated R for violence, grisly images, brief strong language and some nudity.

www.whiteoutmovie.com

THE BOX
In theatres on November 6

Director: Richard Kelly
Writers: Screenplay by Richard Kelly
Based upon the short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson
Producers: Sean McKittrick, Richard Kelly, Dan Lin
Executive Producers: Edward H. Hamm Jr., Sue Baden-Powell, Ted Field, Paris Kasidokostas Latsis, Terry Dougas

Cast: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella

Thriller. What if someone gave you a box containing a button that, if pushed, would bring you a million dollars...but simultaneously take the life of someone you don't know? Would you do it? And what would be the consequences? The year is 1976. Norma Lewis is a teacher at a private high school and her husband, Arthur, is an engineer working at NASA. They are, by all accounts, an average couple living a normal life in the suburbs with their young son...until a mysterious man with a horribly disfigured face appears on their doorstep and presents Norma with a life-altering proposition: the box. With only 24 hours to make their choice, Norma and Arthur face an impossible moral dilemma. What they don't realize is that no matter what they decide, terrifying consequences will have already been set in motion. They soon discover that the ramifications of this decision are beyond their control and extend far beyond their own fortune and fate.

This film has been rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images.

www.thebox-movie.com

SHERLOCK HOLMES
In theatres on December 25

Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Screenplay by Michael Robert Johnson and Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg
Screen Story by Lionel Wigram and Michael Robert Johnson
Producers: Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey, Dan Lin
Executive Producers: Michael Tadross, Bruce Berman

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Eddie Marsan, Kelly Reilly

Action-Adventure Mystery. In a dynamic new portrayal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous characters, "Sherlock Holmes" sends Holmes and his stalwart partner Watson on their latest challenge. Revealing fighting skills as lethal as his legendary intellect, Holmes will battle as never before to bring down a new nemesis and unravel a deadly plot that could destroy the country.

www.Sherlock-Holmes-Movie.com

NINJA ASSASSIN
In theatres on November 25

Director: James McTeigue
Writers: Screenplay by Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski
Story by Matthew Sand
Producers: Joel Silver, Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski, Grant Hill
Executive Producers: Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Steve Richards

Cast: Rain, Naomie Harris, Ben Miles, Sho Kosugi, Rick Yune

Action. Raizo is one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Taken from the streets as a child, he was transformed into a trained killer by the Ozunu Clan, a secret society whose very existence is considered a myth. But haunted by the merciless execution of his friend by the Clan, Raizo breaks free from them...and vanishes. Now he waits, preparing to exact his revenge. In Berlin, Europol agent Mika Coretti has stumbled upon a money trail linking several political murders to an underground network of untraceable assassins from the Far East. Defying the orders of her superior, Ryan Maslow, Mika digs into top secret agency files to learn the truth behind the murders. Her investigation makes her a target, and the Ozunu Clan sends a team of killers, led by the lethal Takeshi, to silence her forever. Raizo saves Mika from her attackers, but he knows that the Clan will not rest until they are both eliminated. Now, entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse through the streets of Europe, Raizo and Mika must trust one another if they hope to survive...and finally bring down the elusive Ozunu Clan.

This film has been rated R for strong bloody stylized violence throughout, and language.

www.Ninja-Assassin-Movie.com

See Also: Sherlock Holmes Begins Filming In London / Sneak Preview - Where The Wild Things Are /

Sneak Preview - Where The Wild Things Are

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Source: Warner Bros

"Where The Wild Things Are" isn't scheduled to be released until October 16th, 2009, but Warner Bros has already released four photos for the movie.

Director, Spike Jonze, has had his share of troubles in producing this live-action adaptaion of Maurice Sendak's classic childrens book about an imaginary world inhabited by many large monsters that was created by a young boy after he is sent to his room without any supper. Originally the film was set to be produced way back in 2000, but a rift between Jones and Universal forced the production to be moved to Warner Bros.

Reportedly the seven monsters will be actors in up to nine-foot-tall suits made of foam, although it is expected that their faces will be computer-generated.

"Where The Wild Things Are" will feature an all-star cast including Catherine Keener, Max Records, Mark Ruffalo, Lauren Ambrose, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara and Forest Whitaker.