Where The Wild Things Are Trailer

The trailer for Where The Wild Things Are is now available online in high definition.

Sorry it's been so long since my last update...the hotly anticipated trailer for Where The Wild Things Are (see previous post) has finally hit the web and wow. I can't wait to see this. You can check it out on YouTube, or in high definition at Apple.com.

27/3/09 Update: Sayraphim Lothian shares an account of her work as a refurbishment technician maintaining the the monster suits on movie's set in her blog (link via Puppeteers Unite).

First Look at "Where The Wild Things Are" Creatures

A series of skateboards provide the first look at the monsters of Where The Wild Things Are.

The film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are (see previous post) has been hotly anticipated for a long time. The film's original teaser was released back in 2000 and the movie's troubled production history has been widely reported. Now as the Wild Things prepare to finally move to the big screen we get our first complete look at the movie's creatures.

Spike Jonze Talks About Where The Wild Things Are

Acclaimed director Spike Jonze is adapting the children's classic Where The Wild Things Are in to a feature film (photo via Ain't It Cool News).

There's been a lot of online nervousness and speculation about Spike Jonze's feature film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are (see previous post). Very little information and even fewer images from the film have been released (click here for one Kanye West accidentally posted to his blog earlier this year), but AICN's "Moriarty" has seen a rough cut of the film and sat down for a wide-ranging, unfettered interview about it with director Spike Jonze.

What I found especially interesting in the interview was reading about the approach that's being used to realize the Wild Things onscreen. Jonze insisted on making the movie as real as possible and filmed most of it on location in Australia using performers in body suits (made by the Creature Shop) with non-articulated faces, which will be animated in post production. Very little of the film has been actually finished yet, but Moriarty has nothing but good things to say about the work-in-progress.

Where the Wild Things Are is scheduled to be released late next year.

Via I Watch Stuff.

Kanye Visits The Creature Shop

Is this a model of one of the monsters from Where The Wild Things Are?

Jim Henson's Creature Shop is rumoured to be working on something "big" for Kanye West's next live tour. The popular Hip Hop artist recently paid a visit to the Creature Shop and posted some photos from the trip on his blog. The pictures include the one above, which appears to be a model for the upcoming (and reportedly troubled) film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are.

Image via /film.

Update: Aaaand just like that the picture goes "poof". Maybe Kanye wasn't supposed to post that? It turns out that the Creature Shop is building a bunch of giant puppets for Kanye's next tour. I've updated my original post accordingly.

Where The Wild Things Aren't

There's trouble brewing in post-production on Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are.

I don't know if you've heard or not yet, but Spike Jonze is directing a film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are featuring puppets and hybrid animatronic/CG characters from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Spy reports from early screenings have indicated that the movie is a dark, brilliant and extremely faithful adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak book, so naturally Warner Brothers is rumoured to want to either extensively reshoot it, or scrap the movie altogether and start over.

I really hope Warner doesn't mess with the movie. Chances are they're looking for a fuzzy (or at least Harry Potter-esque) family movie and didn't get it, which begs the question why did they hire Spike Jonze to direct in the first place? Oh well, at least Forest Whitaker's kids liked it.

Via I Watch Stuff.

Coke Bear

This full-body polar bear puppet costume is a mascot for Coca-Cola.

There are some short videos on YouTube here and here of a neat full body bear polar puppet. The bear is of course one of the famous Coca-Cola polar bears and is apparently the mascot of The World of Coca-Cola, a new permanent exhibit dedicated to the history of The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta.

Thanks to Jon for sending in these links!

Update: James wrote in to say that the Coke Bears (apparently there is more than one) are built by the New York Muppet Workshop, who also maintain and repair them. They also train the performers who perform in the suits.