Wow.

Anybody else happen to catch the trailer for Spike Jonze's upcoming film Where the Wild Things Are?
Stop whatever you're doing right now and check it out below.
It looks AMAZING. Never read the book when I was younger, but I'm definitely excited for this. It's Spike's first film since Adaptation in 2002.
(Oh, and this is the HD version, so be sure to switch to full-screen mode and turn that sound up loud!)

Lots of behind-the-scenes drama on this one:

• It was originally set up at Universal, but Spike and the studio had the classic "creative differences" and he took it to Warner Brothers.
• It's been in production since 2006 (that's when it started shooting - although some reports have said that filming began a year earlier in 2005) and is just now being finished.
• In an effort to give the film the surrealistic quality he wanted, Spike shot the majority of the film outside in the Australian wilderness. As most special effects-heavy pictures are shot inside on soundstages to provide more control over elements such as weather, the decision to shoot outside caused constant delays.
  
• Reports say that the estimated budget of $80 million may have ballooned to a figure of $115 million.
• Apparently, when the finished film was turned in to the studio last year, executives were shocked by what they saw - a dark, brooding picture that was deemed to be largely "inaccessible" to a family audience. They considered firing Jonze, hiring another director, and re-shooting the entire film, but instead he went back and completed several months of re-shoots in an effort to appease the studio and reach a satisfactory "middle-ground" in terms of tone and content. The release date was subsequently rescheduled from late 2008 to October of this year.
  

So, obviously, if most of the above rumors are true, Spike Jonze will probably never be given that kind of budget again. Hopefully he was able to get most of what he wanted onto the screen. But regardless, that trailer makes it all look pretty damn incredible.