Where The Wild Things Are (2004-2005)

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Directed by: Eric Goldberg
Written by: David Reynolds
Music by:

Production start on: In development hell (originally planned to start in late 2001 or early 2002)
Release Date: TBD (originally set for Thanksgiving 2004 or Summer 2005)

CAST

Tom Hanks (unconfirmed)

STORY

Published in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are is the Caldecott Medal-winning story of Max, a mischievous child who is punished by his parents when he will not stop wearing a wolf costume to scare the neighbors. The child is sent to bed without supper, and his imagination conjures up a forest where he meets up with the wild things -- monsters who embrace him as their king.

INTERESTING FACTS

The illustrated book carried only 300 words, but like the brief illustrated books of Dr. Seuss and Chris Van Allsburg, Maurice Sendak's novel provides an ideal blueprint for a feature film.

Maurice Sendak spent a year writing the book and two years illustrating it, and part of the challenge in making the movie has been expanding the story's intuitive, fantastical quality into a movie. "My books are very strange," Sendak says. "I'm talking about emotional issues and covering them with the sheerest story. To invent a story that doesn't drown the interior content is to put your finger on where the problem lies. Movies or books that set out to teach children are sickening because the assumption is that they don't know this. The book was for pleasure. People are annoyed that Max doesn't get punished. My thought was, Why should he? He's doing exactly what he'll do every week until he's 35 and goes to a therapist and his parents throw him out."

Back in 1984, animator Glen Keane and former-Disney-animator-now-resident-genius-at-Pixar John Lasseter cobbled together a 45 second long Where the Wild Things.

At one point, this was being planed as live-action, and Gore Verbinski (Mouse Trap, The Mexican) was attached to direct. Back when Gore Verbinski was considering directing this as live-action, Eric Singer (debut) was adapting the screenplay. It's not known if enough/any of Singer's script will be used by Reynolds (if so, he may be credited by the WGA).

It was announced on August 6, 2001 that Universal had fast-tracked a cartoon adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book, hiring two Disney animation fixtures to spearhead the project. Additionally, it was revealed that Tom Hanks would likely contribute his voice to the film.

Tom Hanks became involved after he read the book to his children, Sendak says, adding happily, "He has emancipated views."

The fast-track term for a computer-animated feature is relative, given that the process takes around three years. Universal is eying a Thanksgiving 2004 or summer 2005 release date for the film. Tom Hanks' Playtone Prods. is producing.

10-year Disney veteran Eric Goldberg, who co-directed Pocahontas and was a key animator on such films as Aladdin, Hercules and Fantasia 2000, left his post at the studio to direct the feature. David Reynolds, who has been part of the writing team on numerous Disney animated features over the past four years and got screen credit on The Emperor's New Groove, has been hired to adapt the script. It is the first non-Disney project either has done in years.

Online rumours stated in June 2002 that director Eric Goldberg had optioned to depart the Universal project after studio execs, author Maurice Sendak and executive/creative producer Tom Hanks couldn't all get on the same page. Brenda Chapman, the first woman to direct an animated feature film--DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt--and previously the head of story on Beauty and the Beast had left DreamWorks last year to join the Wild Things project as a story lead. "No word as yet on where she has gone since Where The Wild Things Are went into the darkness."

74-year old author Maurice Sendak explained in August 2002 that he's "very excited about the prospect of it but rather cast down by how difficult it is to achieve. What the book was to the publishing world of 1960, I want the movie to be to the movie world of today--a totally original, transforming and transfixing work. My feeling is, If it isn't terrific, why do it? To me, there's nothing worse than a fine book destroyed just by being turned into a movie whose only purpose is to survive Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The only important thing for me is that I would have control. I would say yes or no to the script, to the technique of making the film. I would bend and compromise. I am by nature a collaborator, but in the case of Where the Wild Things Are, I have to be the final decider. That's something they all have no trouble with. Maybe they make little clay dolls of me out in Los Angeles that I don't know about. It would explain the arthritic spasms!"

Asked that same month if the studio is wary of the darkness implicit in works such as Where the Wild Things Are, Universal's co-president of production, Mary Parent, replies, "Are they dark or are they real? Max has that classic dilemma--he's powerless but he yearns to be the master of the kingdom. Kids want to be independent, but they depend on their parents and their parents set the rules and dictate the parameters around the kids' life. Even as adults, we're not masters of our universe. We also push up against feelings of powerlessness. There's a reason why these books are world-renowned. They resonate so strongly."

Eric Goldberg explained in a September 2003 interview that "I was on Where the Wild Things Are for a year. I was developing it with some very talented people. We had Brenda Chapman, Sue Nichols, Jennifer Klein, all as my story crew. We had Dave Reynolds as the writer--a pretty darned good crew, and I actually think we had a take on the movie that probably would have worked. I think the participants--Tom Hanks, Maurice Sendak and their associated producers--felt it was such an important movie that they never could quite come to terms with exactly what they wanted the movie to be. So, when the Looney Tunes opportunity came up, it was around the same time that Universal decided to either go ahead--or not go ahead--and so it seemed to dovetail that way. I don't bear anybody on Wild Things any ill will. In Maurice Sendak's case, I can absolutely understand. This is his jewel in the crown, his baby, and he wants to see it done right. If we're not getting what's in his head, then so be it. Whoever winds up doing the film, it's always going to be a major undertaking when you take a 15-page children’s book and turn it into a 90-minute movie."