Much Ado about Wild Things

The New York Magazine’s Vulture bloggers have been very enthusiastic about the movie of Sendak’s classic book, offering the rest of us tantalizing commentary about the script and other stuff. Now they report that things are getting very hot-under-the-collar at Warner Brothers. They link to this post which posits that the movie is on the verge of being reshot as well as to this post which includes the following responses to an early screen test:

“And some kids at my screening began to cry and asked their parents to leave, so that should give you an idea.” “The things are not cute. Max comes off a bit weird and off-putting ‘He slaps his mom!’ and he seems confused and not charming at all.” “No rumpus, no big set pieces, no ‘state-of-the-art’ lucrative sequences just some running around on some desert place and thats that.”

This sounds and reads all too much like the horrible mucking about with The Golden Compass movie. Panic and lack of confidence resulted in a less-than-it-could-have-been movie. Is that going to happen here too? If so, what a shame.