Movie Trivia

Eric Goldberg was at one point attached to direct.

The open call for Max was huge. It took several months and thousands of boys auditioned from several countries worldwide.

Spike Jonze was approached by Maurice Sendak and was asked to take on the film adaptation. A movie had been on the burner since the early 90s, and Mr. Sendak had not been able to find anyone fitting to take it on.

The creatures are being portrayed by actors in 6-8 foot tall costumes, with some additional animatronics, and computer-generated faces. The costumes were created by The Jim Henson Company, who were responsible for the Muppets and Labyrinth creatures.

Throughout the writing process, Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers kept in close contact with Maurice Sendak, consulting and sharing script changes, models of the monsters, etc.

It has been said that actors in the monster costumes would wear the head for no more than half an hour at a time, after which they would have 10-15 minute breaks in front of an air conditioner. Stunt performers would remain fully suited for hours at a time, without air conditioning.

Numerous cameras followed the actors around to impress their expressions and feelings. The images would then be digitally "infused" onto the faces of the puppets and would follow the actors' performances.

Originally, the film had a May 2008 release, which was pushed back to October 2008, after that, it was pushed back to a 2009 release.

Filming began in 2005.

Early development of a film version was leaning towards a fully-animated film.

Though their names are not mentioned in the book, Maurice Sendak named the Wild Things after his aunts and uncles: Bernard, Tzippeh, Aaron, Moishe, etc. The Wild Things have names in the film, but are not named after Sendak's aunts and uncles.

Warner Brothers studio was reportedly so unhappy with Spike Jonze's final movie (it was much less family friendly than they imagined) that they wanted to re-shoot the whole $75 million project back in early 2008. Jonze was eventually given some more time and money by the studio in order to make the final product satisfying to both, the studio and himself.