Now here’s a project that I can’t wait to see happen! According to Variety, Warner Bros. has hired Spike Jonze ("Adaptation.") to direct a live-action (and inevitably CGI-laden) adaptation of Maurice Sendak‘s classic kid’s story "Where the Wild Things Are."
"Warner Bros. has acquired "Where the Wild Things Are" out of turnaround from Universal.
Adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic kid’s book, which Spike Jonze will helm from a script he and novelist Dave Eggers penned, is expected to get under way late in the year.
Playtone’s Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are producing, along with Sendak and John Carls.
Figuring out a way to turn the 338-word "Wild Things" story into a movie has been a long process, with multiple helmers and writers weighing in. Details of the Jonze-Eggers version have been closely held, but pic will be a live-action feature that will likely require a sizable CGI budget.
Universal and Sendak did not see eye-to-eye on the concept, but the current vision of the pic has the strong support of Sendak, who told the New York Times in October, "I am in love with it. If Spike and Dave do not do this movie now, I would just as soon not see any version of it ever get made."
