'Wild Things' film now battling poop along with everything else

Spike Jonze has suffered from persistent blog rumors about his "deeply troubled" production of Where the Wild Things Are. His take on the classic Maurice Sendak children's book began filming three years ago, but has been plagued by a "the plot is too dark for the children!" whisper campaign, followed by the usual studio meddling and extensive rewrites, pushing the release date back to this October. A trailer is out, and the film looks promising, albeit precious in a Wes Anderson "Look what I made!" hipster handcrafted sort of way. But now, the Warner Bros. film has a new nemesis: poo-poo jokes.
  This parody of the Wild Things trailer uses Everyone Poops, Japanese illustrator Taro Gomi's 1993 paean to feces of various species, as the alt-kids-lit source material for its Jonze-ian cinematic treatment. The mock mini-movie was written by sketch comedy group The Landline, while improv/sketch troupe Action Pals had some sort of involvement, too. "Spike Jonze wastes no time adapting another 10-page children's book into a film," reads a blurb posted with the clip, which is on YouTube and Landlinetv.com. In it, the zen picture book is adapted into a story about a young girl and her plushie unicorn pal, who gives her the 411 on number two. The send-up swaps a talking toilet for a Sendak monster and has some fun with the original trailer's precious hand-lettered titles that the Newer New Hollywood so loves. "Inside all of us is hope" (and "fear" and "adventure"), the Wild Things trailer states in pulsating white-on-black block letters. The parody offers, "Inside all of us is poop."

—Posted by Becky Ebenkamp