Where the Wild Things Are (film) Berger ("The Chronicles of Narnia") turned down offers to work on the film four times. Although the book inspired him as a child to work in special effects, he felt filming it was a "horrible idea." Jim Henson's Creature Shop provided the animatronic suits for the Wild Things. Filming began in April 2006 at Docklands Studios Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia. Jonze kept in close consultation with Sendak throughout the process, and the author approved creature designs created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. To make the set a more comfortable environment for Max Records, Jonze encouraged the crew members to bring
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