Where the wild things are trailered.

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By Alison Willmore on 03/25/2009

Filed under: Trailering

A trailer for Spike Jonze's long-in-coming adaptation of Maurice Sendak's picture book "Where the Wild Things Are" had it's debut on, of all places, "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" today and ~~is now online here.~~ Update: Taken down, for whatever reason. An embedded version, with a preceding ad, is below, and here it is on Apple in glorious HD.

"Where the Wild Things Are" is already a notorious production -- after a tiff with Universal, the original studio attached to the film in 2000, Jonze moved to Warner Bros, who were then rumored to have been unhappy with the tone and to have insisted on reshoots.There were reports from test screenings of children in the audiences crying, possibly at the monsters, which were announced to be a mix of costumes and CGI. People wondered if it really was suited for kids, but the bigger mystery for me was what the storyline would be -- Sendak's book was ten sentences long, which left a lot of leeway/work for screenwriter Dave Eggers.

The trailer, which is, in its trailery way, pretty wonderful (and oh so melancholic/twee), looks to be pitched over the heads of any actual child and right at a hip adult audience, with almost all dialogue replaced by a soundtrack of Arcade Fire's "Wake Up." Those magic hour shots, that raggedly magical realism -- it's like crack for those of us with a soft spot for bittersweet nostalgia. The movie's not due out until October 16, so I suppose the studio has plenty of time to try to convince parents this is also something their offspring will be entertained by.

Tags: Dave Eggers, Spike Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are

wild

don't know if i like the way it's going as a feature, but i do know that i watched the trailer three times in pure fascination.

Ariana

Alright, this movie looks adorable, but I'm still iffy about it NOT being animated.

Ryan

I actually really look forward to this movie. My company doesn't have a story like this that would be part live action/CGI characters. We have a cool animated feature idea. Nonetheless, I'm always curious about these types of films, such as Bridge to Terabithia. I think Village Roadshow does a great job with some of the movies they put out like the new Sherlock Holmes film, but I especially look forward to this one. The soundtrack sounds awesome.

Ryan

So, I just looked at the trailer again and now that I look at it, the characters don't appear to be CGI. That's my mistake, and now I'm even more interested with this film.

Jonathan

I'm going to watch it as many times as I can BECAUSE it's not animated (and of course because it's "Where The Wild Things Are". And I agree with Mr. Wild over here, the trailer was purely fascinating. I can tell this movie is going to become a favorite of mine.

Erich

I am really looking forward to see this movie. I cleared my schedule this weekend just to see it! When I first saw the trailer I was happy to see that movie was finally coming out that had a fantasy, science fiction appeal. It’s been awhile since I had seen a movie like that. Also, it’s nice to see a movie based on a book that I liked growing up. It brings back childhood memories! Erich