FAQ

Where the Wild Things Are was adapted from a children's book of the same name, written by American author Maurice Sendak and first published in 1963. The story was adapted for the movie by American film-makers Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze (who also directed the movie).

Partially. All of the human characters are live-action; Max is played by child actor Max Records, and his mother Connie is played by Catherine Keener. The monsters are actors wearing foam-padded monster suits to make them look big and furry with only their faces animated by CGI to look like the monsters in the book.

In the book, Max gets sent to his room without any supper and creates a forest filled with monsters that crown him as their ruler. The film takes on a much longer and deeper plot, since the story in the book is done mostly in drawings and illustrations, and the written text was all of ten sentences long. In the movie Max runs away after he bit his mom because she stayed with her boyfriend and didn't play with him. He then apparently sails to an island filled with monsters, but the editing blurs the line as to whether this is real or not.

In the original story, the wild things had no names. They were later given names supposedly based on members of Sendak's family, and it is these names under which toy figures were marketed. The names of the wild things in the movie (and their correspondence to Sendak's names) are as follows: Carol (Moishe), Douglas (Emil), Judith (Aaron), KW (Tzippy), Bernard the Bull (Bernard), Alexander (Goat Boy), and Ira (Bruno).

A majority of the filming took place in Melbourne, Australia. A lot of the action with the wild things was filmed there.

The song is called "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire.

"Building All is Love" by Karen O and the Kids.