The men who brought you Being John Malkovich and McSweeney’s might be satisfied with their adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, but rumor has it the real monsters in Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers‘ movie are the stuffed suits from Warner Brothers. Chud.com reports that the $75 million movie is on the verge of being lost to a start-to-finish reshoot that will turn it into Monsters Inc. 2.
The plan was to use Jim Henson Creature shop for the beasts’ suits; their faces would be added in later with CGI. Some whispers have the studio blaming the animation process and Jonze’s overall vision for the reshoots, but, as depicted in the ultra-twee test-scene above (a kid in a bunny suit doing the robot? Jesus!), the look is signature Spike. What did the studio expect? The real issue, Chud reports, citing studio sources, is the choice of actors to play Max, the boy in Sendak’s children’s book who imagines a world of giant hairy creatures. The young actor the Jonze team chose is a relatively unknown Max Records.
Was Haley Joel Osment not available? He’s what, 12 now?
An Eggers associate politely explained that Dave is working on writing and neither available nor likely to comment on the movie. Jonze did not return messages relayed to him by reps by post time, and Warner Brothers did not immediately return a message.