I am so happy to hear it’s finally happening. This is my all time favorite book from my childhood. Probably because I was sent to bed many times with no supper – angel that I was and wished I had Wild Things to be my friends. I have been on the fence with Jonze’s choice to have men in suits on this movie rather than make them CG, but his explanation in the choice in USA Today might have me thinking different now.

“I wanted them to actually be there, I think as a kid I wouldn’t imagine it as a cartoon. I would imagine they were in my world. There’s a danger with Max being there on a real location. Dangerous and exciting.”
“I never thought of it as a children’s movie. My intention was to be true to how it felt to be 9 years old. Maurice’s whole thing is to be honest. You can say anything to kids as long as you are respectful and not pandering.”

– Spike Jonze


This movie has
had quite the history in the making and a 3-minute long preview will play in front of the new animated Dreamworks animated feature, Monsters vs. Aliens, Friday March 27th. From the WTWTA Blog:

-Not a teaser, full 3-min trailer, scored to ‘Wake Up’ by Arcade Fire (it fits beautifully, and is either the 3rd or 4th time the band has agreed to license their music, won’t be in the actual film obviously)

-Try as I might, I can’t verbalize how I felt about the trailer beyond the most grandiose superlatives: ‘beautiful’ and ‘gorgeous’ and ‘breathtaking’, making me sound like Pete Hammond. The environments in particular (there’s a sequence of cutting between 4 shots of Max running through different environments that is absolutely magical) are a work of incredible vision, especially in light of the production methods Spike opted for. It does feel like a ‘kids movie’ (not pejorative): the trailer repeatedly made me about eight years old, over and over again. Unless I’m an idiot, and you’ll see yourself in a week or two, the finalized monsters are some kind of incredible technical achievement.

-Much of the VFX work went to detailed facial animations on the monster’s eyes and faces to give them a functional expressive palette. That remains the only post work left before release. They look nothing short of real and feel very alive and very, very huggable.


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Angie Jones

Angie Jones - Artist | Educator | Animator

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