Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are Trailer
Here it is folks, the first trailer for what is surely one of the most anticipated movies of the year for a lot of people: Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are! It debuted this morning on Ellen of all places. The movie has been through a heap of production problems over the past couple of years, and Warner Brothers were even supposedly considering scrapping it at one point. Thankfully Spike Jonze stuck to his guns, the studio trusted him, and now this beautiful trailer is our reward.
Set to the sounds of Arcade Fire, the trailer shows off the marvelous mix of live action, animatronics and CG, and completely justifies Spike Jonze’s unique approach to the material. Based on the book by Maurice Sendak, this is totally the kind of movie I would have wanted to see when I was a kid (and still want to see now, actually). The trailer only hints at what’s to come, but I think it very clearly shows something magical in the making. What did you think of the trailer? Where The Wild Things Are hits theatres on October 16th, 2009.
Comments (19)
Holy crapballsonfire, this looks amazing. Amazing. I got chills. Spike Jonze is the ONLY person who could pull this off, and it looks like he might have done it. Hell fucking yes.
Posted by bryan on March 25th, 2009Yes.
Wonderful.
Posted by Ryan M. on March 25th, 2009Absolutely magnificent!! I agree Spike was the right one for this movie!! Just a brilliant trailer especially using one of my favorite bands, The Arcade Fire! Wow can’t wait!
Posted by 1138 on March 25th, 2009Soooo excited. Just curious as to if they ever did reshoots as they had originally said they would due to test screenings being “too scary”. Does anyone know what ended up happening with all that?
This past spring there was a Maurice Sendak exhibit in Philly of all his illustrations and he talks about how the holocaust really influenced his style of writing/drawing and why his stuff treads on being ‘dark’/realistic. Which is why I really hope they don’t sugar-coat the film just to appease the masses of over-protective parents.
And, man, do I love those animatronics.
Posted by Falsk on March 25th, 2009This looks so amazing. This will be an all-time classic that will be cherished for generations, mark my words.
Posted by Justice on March 25th, 2009absolutely amazing…
so amazing that you even seem remotely excited Sean! (I always get the impression from your writing that you are “humbug” or lukewarm about most stuff, I apologize if this is a bad assessment.)
Posted by Bob The Slob on March 25th, 2009“Spike Jonze is the ONLY person who could pull this off”
aaaaaa, wrong.
Tim Burton
Micheal Gondry
Frank Oz
Terry Gilliam
Don’t get me wrong I like Spike, but the scene in the trailer with the Wild Thing running down the hill and it is obviously a man with a big fake head on has me a little worried.
The trailer looks a little to pedestrian for my taste. The book transported me, as a child, to a far off land. This trailer looks like it was shoot in a local park. I know Spike’s handheld, homemade film style is all the rage, but shouldn’t the material define the style?
Posted by rus in chicago on March 25th, 2009I think this trailer looks AWESOME
Posted by Henrik on March 25th, 2009Bob: I have to maintain my journalistic distance at all times.
Posted by Sean on March 25th, 2009I’m a little dissapointed in this. I was expecting a different style than what I’ve got and I’m not really digging this. The premise is cool, but the outcome is not really me. I guess I’m pretty much alone on this one.
Posted by Kasper F. Nielsen on March 25th, 2009Looks like The Neverending Story via some hipster MTV director.
Posted by TheAllKnowingGod on March 25th, 2009I got a bit of a man-in-suit vibe a couple of times during the trailer, but overall I think it looks great. I never read the book so I don’t really know what to look for, but I’m definitely excited.
Posted by Neil M on March 25th, 2009I think they did use a man in suit at some points… from what I’ve heard it’s a mixture of all different kinds of effects depending on the scene.
Posted by Sean on March 25th, 2009Does Jay hate it? This looks great! can’t wait it maybe come my most watched trailer this year.
Posted by Theman on March 26th, 2009From my read of the trailer, I think all of it is man in suit with designed scenes were they do CG on the monster faces. I think this is evident in how the cuts and framing hide portions of the monster’s faces when we see Wild Things talking.
There is one quick clip of a blatant dude in a suit with a big mascot like head running and they did not bother to animate the face at all – by not doing any CGI it reads totally as a fake head. This could be an unfinished shot, but why would they have included it in the trailer?! I think, like Sean stated, they are trying to combine several types of effects, both in-camera and CG, to help convey the story.
This with a cinema vérité camera style might sound smart but I believe it is wrong for this source materiel. I have a real invested interest in this book as a drawing I did based on characters in the book when I was 3 hangs on in parent’s house. Basically, this book started my creative career. That book, as I remember from childhood, does not lend itself to some deconstructed, uber-trendy, docu-style. What it needs is to capture the dreamlike, child’s mindscape, child empowerment, mystical world introduced by the book. I also have a problem with the unaffected human voices for the monsters. A clean human voice is not what I imagined these Wild Things sounding like. Are the producers and Spike choosing to keep the voices clean because they got Tony Soprano?! I just feel Spike is bending the material in to his style instead of the reverse. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong.
Posted by rus in chicago on March 26th, 2009….must stop watching trailer.
Posted by rustyaries on March 26th, 2009They definitely used man in suit. I remember reading an article that talked about how they went out and looked for the tallest people they could find to play some of the characters wherever they filmed (Australia maybe?). I think this was the right decision though, and I’m sure once I get the full effect I’ll be even more impressed. I really don’t think could have worked nearly as well if they had gone full CGI.
Posted by Neil M on March 26th, 2009I don’t see the problem with “man-in-suit”. There are scores of people who wouldn’t shut up about how Yoda would’ve looked soooo much better if he hadn’t been entirely CGI in all the recent Star Wars movies. What’s so terrible about going back to having something physical in the scene?
Posted by Falsk on March 26th, 2009I’ve never seen a full CG’ed character pulled off as lifelike as men-in-suits.
there is to a large extent a technology fetish in our society.
that’s all i’ll say.
Posted by Richard on March 26th, 2009Leave a Reply