You know what really got me hooked on Maurice Senak's classic book Where the Wild Things Are was Levar Burton. After he did an episode of "Reading Rainbow" on it, I grabbed my Belton Public Library card and dragged my Mom out to the car. I had to have it! For a lot of kids, Where the Wild Things are was and hopefully still is a special experience. Now it's being made into a movie, and though I'm no longer exactly in the story's target age bracket, it's hard not to be a little bit excited.
The latest news on Where the Wild Things Are comes from The Hollywood Reporter, where they have word on who they've cast to do voices for the Spike Jones adapted film. Why do they need voices? Because many of the book's weirder characters will be done with puppets touched up by a little bit of CGI. To me, that's really the best news here. Live action puppets are so much better than easy to use computer animation. I'm surprised the Jim Henson Company hasn't been called in to work on this one. Or maybe they have been and we just haven't about it yet? They'd be fools not to use them.
Anyway, on to the voices. Here's the full list of performers being used: Benicio Del Toro, Michael Berry Jr., Paul Dano, Tom Noonan, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker, Michelle Williams. It's Benicio that gets me most excited. Not just because he's a big name, that's usually irrelevant when you're talking voice casting. But his voice just seems perfectly suited for that wild world. Heck, he's even got the look. They should get him actually in the film somehow rather than simply have his voice come out of sock.
The film is just getting underway with Warner Bros., so it will be a while before it hits theaters. The movie, like the book, will tell the story of a boy named Max who runs away from home after a fight with his Mom, and ends up in a forest where wild things run amok.
