Internet speculation and hysteria is amusing and dangerous. You’ll recall that rumors of reshoots on Spike Jonze’s adaptation of “Where The Wild Things Are” quickly morphed into feral panic that begat more rampant specious conjecture that presumed that the film was a) being entirely rehot, b) would possibly be totally re-written and c) that Jonze and Eggers might be fired from the project entirely.
All of this was obvioulsy just hollow assumptions and those of us with cooler heads (ok, not many out there) took more of a wait and see attitude instead of sounding the alarm up to red alert status.
Well, an techy interview with ‘Wild Things’ assistant editor James Haygood in yesterday’s StudioDaily website basically confirms what we had assumed – Jonze is still on the project, some re-writes are happening and some re-shoots will be happening, but calm down WWIII is not on the horizon. This excerpt basically says it all.
Can you talk a little bit more about Where the Wild Things Are?
I just spent the last year on it. It is an amazing project. Like all of Spike’s projects, there’s a complicated birthing process. But it’s a real special, one-of-a-kind thing. That was really fun, and it’s still going. I may go back for a couple months. They’ve gone on hiatus to shoot a couple things and write some stuff, so post-production took a break. I really look forward to seeing how that all comes together. We worked in HD, so whatever movie I do next, I think it’s going to be edited in HD.
Note there’s no panic or hysteria. Production has gone on hiatus to make some tweaks, big fucking deal. If Jonze were gone, he’d have said, if reshoots and re-writes were massive, he’d probably have said that too. The tone is even keeled. We’re hoping internet geeks will shut the fuck up now and dial down the teenage emo drama once and for all.
