Where the Wild Things Are (film) Where the Wild Things Are (film) Where the Wild Things Are is a 2009 fantasy drama film directed by Spike Jonze. Written by Jonze and Dave Eggers, it is adapted from Maurice Sendak's 1963 children's book of the same name. It combines live-action, performers in costumes, animatronics, and computer-generated imagery (CGI). The film stars Max Records and features the voices of James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Lauren Ambrose, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara, and Chris Cooper. The film centers on a lonely boy named Max who sails away to an island inhabited by creatures known as the "Wild Things," who declare Max
Where the Wild Things Are (film) their children to the set. Some of them can be seen in the film's classroom scene. Michelle Williams was originally cast as the female Wild Thing K.W. only to leave the project after her voice "didn't match the original vision of how the Wild Thing should sound". She was replaced by Lauren Ambrose, and filming continued. In 2008, test footage was leaked onto the internet, garnering mixed reactions. Jonze called the footage "a very early test... to see if our VFX plan for the faces would work," but early fan outcry over the video, along with rumored "scared children" in