Where The Wild Things Are (2009)

Film Type:

Feature

Language:

English

Colour Info:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Frame Rate:

24 fps

Aspect Ratio:

2.35:1

Stereoscopy:

No

Goofs:

Character Error
When Max jumps on K.W, Carol jumps toward them and K.W. says "Max look out." Max never told them his name. They just called him "King".

Continuity
During the "Rumpus", when Carol jumps straight up into a tree trunk, he falls back on his front. However, when the camera cuts to Max, then back to Carol, he is now on his back.

Continuity
When Max is falling head over heels down the sand dune, his crown comes flying off twice.

Crew/Equipment Visible
When Max says, "Wow!" when he sees Carol's world built from sticks, an earpiece is visible in Max Records' ear.

Revealing Mistakes
In the early scenes in which Max is outside playing in the snow, there are leaves on the trees and roses in bloom. You can't see his breath in the air and it doesn't fog the window. If you look closely in some shots, you can see a light fog in the air created by the cold manufactured snow on a warm day.

Trivia:

Spike Jonze had his voice cast act out their characters on a soundstage, to ensure that the voices came from a performance of actors working together, instead of filming the movie and recording the voices later, or recording the actors individually. The actors wore radio microphones attached to their heads with headbands. Jonze and Catherine Keener would perform Max. Even before this soundstage shoot, Spike took the voice cast to Griffith Park to wage an actual dirt clod war.

The open call for Max was huge. It took several months and thousands of boys auditioned from several countries worldwide.

Spike Jonze turned down the chance to make the movie fully animated, because he wanted people to feel the Wild Things, and thought it would be more exciting and dangerous, if a real kid were running around with the wild things.

When Max's mother is shown speaking on the phone to her co-worker, she asks why "Mr. Lasseter" (presumably her boss) didn't like her report. This is most likely a reference to John Lasseter, who was one of the original artists on the now famous "Where the Wild Things Are" Disney animation test.

All the original songs in the movie were written and preformed by Karen O, credited as her stage name Karen O., the lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She dated director Spike Jonze at the time of production. They have since broken up.

When Max is standing on a small pile of books in his room, the spine of one of them clearly says 'Where the Wild Things Are'.

It has been said that actors in the monster costumes would wear the head for no more than half an hour at a time, after which they would have 10-15 minute breaks in front of an air conditioner. Stunt performers would remain fully suited for hours at a time, without air conditioning.

The creatures are being portrayed by actors in 6-8 foot tall costumes, with some additional animatronics, and computer-generated faces. The costumes were created by The Jim Henson Company, who were responsible for the Muppets and the Labyrinth (1986) creatures.

The studio decided not to position the film as a kids movie and spent 70% of the media for it on broad based and adult driven buys.

Numerous cameras followed the actors around to impress their expressions and feelings. The images would then be digitally "infused" onto the faces of the puppets and would follow the actors' performances.

Initially, Warner Brothers studio was so unhappy with Spike Jonze's final movie (it was much less family friendly than they imagined) that they wanted to re-shoot the whole $75 milion project in early 2008. Jonze was eventually given some more time and money by the studio in order to make the final product satisfying to both, the studio and himself.

Though their names are not mentioned in the book, Maurice Sendak named the Wild Things after his aunts and uncles: Bernard, Tzippeh, Aaron, Moishe, etc. In the film they have totally different names.

In July 2006, less than six weeks before the start of shooting, the Henson-built monster suits arrived at the Melbourne soundstage where Spike Jonze and his crew had set up their offices. The actors climbed inside and began moving around. Right away, Jonze could see that the heads were absurdly heavy. Only one of the actors appeared able to walk in a straight line. A few of them called out from within their costumes that they felt like they were going to tip over. Jonze and the production crew had no choice but to tell the Henson people to tear apart the 50-pound heads and remove the remote-controlled mechanical eyeballs. This meant that all the facial expressions would have to be generated in post-production, using computers.

Spike Jonze was approached by Maurice Sendak and was asked to take on the film adaptation. A movie had been on the burner since the early 90s, and Mr. Sendak had not been able to find anyone fitting to take it on.

This movie is the live-action adaptation of the beloved 1963 children's picture book by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak, originally published by Harper & Row.