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"This was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work. The clip doesn't look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours, Griffin, who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before. We love him, but he is not in the actual film...Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet. Talk to you later..." --Spike Jonze

Not too long ago, this leaked test footage clip found its way online and sparked some more interest in Jonze's upcoming interpretation of the beloved children's book Where The Wild Things Are. Jonze, best known for his films "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation," turned in his final cut of the film over to Warner execs in late 2007 --and they weren't pleased.  They found it too dark, and sorely lacking that kid-friendly vibe they were pulling for.

Then there was a test screening, and well, just read some of these audience reactions:

"...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."

These Warner execs freaked out so much, that ever since March rumors have been spreading that they might order the ENTIRE film to be reshot (with or without Spike!).  The budget for Jonze's version was said to be around $75 million dollars already. 

In other words, it looks to be that Jonze has made his "Where The Wild Things Are" film into the kind of dark gem that helped distinguish films like Nicolas Roeg's "The Witches" or George Miller's "Babe: Pig In The City" from your average Brian Grazer-produced, cardboard cut out kids flick.  Those involved in Jonze's film, like Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, obviously understood Jonze's original vision for telling the story in a bleak manner.  And now they are speaking out against Jonze's version getting pulled.

Whitaker, after his kids watched Jonze's cut:  

"My children are 9, 11, and 16.  It was intense. They liked it, though. They enjoyed it.  [The dark scenes] are the point of the movie, and I hope that they maintain that point, because I think children can identify with a character who is upset. …[Max] rolls by himself, no father figure; this is a single family home.  His mother ends up having a boyfriend that becomes like a monster to him…people have to build trust with the people their parent starts to date…These are real issues that the character deals with, and I hope that [the filmmakers] continue to explore them, because kids need to see that; they need to see that other kids are dealing with it."

"The thing is, it's one thing to read [scary stuff] in a book, but when you see an itty-bitty kid running alongside a 10-foot-giant on the side of a cliff, it gets intense. But that's the point, because we're representing the things inside of the kid. They represent his struggles, either him being too angry or being confused, or not feeling like he belongs. They're a gargantuan extension of the way he's feeling inside."