As I'm sure we've all heard by now, Spike Jonze in working on a live action/cgi/puppetry version of the Maurice Sendak's classic book Where The WIld Things Are, which in turn, is in jeopardy of being heavily reshot, and recasted, while the script that Jonze wrote with David Eggers is looking at being reworked also. Execs at Warner Brothers think the current cut is too scary and dark for their intended kid-oriented audience (a better example, I think, of too dark and scary can be seen here)
This is a great little article about Forest Whitaker, who plays one of the wild things in the movie, and how he disagrees with the idea of kids not being able to handle this sort of thing:
“[The dark scenes] are the point of the movie, and I hope that they maintain that point, because I think children can identify with a character who is upset,” the father of four explained, citing one key scene of destruction as being particularly controversial. “[The main character Max] built this whole city, and nobody likes it, and he tears it all up. He’s like, ‘Well if you don’t like it, I’m just going to tear it up!’ because he wants so badly for someone to like it.”
If you haven't already seen the clip, please do yourself a favor and check this out. It's just really.. beautiful. And magical. And sad. And honest. And all the things the book was..
I think it's a pretty sad state in general when people can't realize that children can indeed relate to something real and honest, in a movie or otherwise. I think most kids are a lot smarter and more capable than we think they are.
