Selling Out
By Tom Macy
October 21, 2009
I'd be willing to bet that the voicemails of Penguin Group, Random House and Scholastic were overflowing this past Monday morning. With the unlikely success of the adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze caused studio execs everywhere to start drifting into the children's section of their Barnes and Noble. The quality of the film - pioneeringly arresting visually as well as beautifully restrained thematically - may have been the story for some, myself included. Others will focus on all those zeros it's putting up. Throughout its theatrical run it will continue to enchant audiences by reintroducing them to their private childhood dream worlds. But the real impact of Wild Things (stop your snickering back there!) will be how Hollywood interprets its success.
So are 100 word children's books the next big thing? Will Hollywood react to last weekend the way they did when Transformers proved '80s cartoons to be an untouched mountain of gold (Battleship and Thundercats on their way!)? True, there's a bit of a discrepancy in the size of their opening weekends. But Wild Things' (I told you quiet down!) success cannot be, and I'm sure will not be, ignored. There are a lot of titles out there that people have had a relationship with from a young age. And when you can create an instant connection in enough people from a movie title alone, then you have the most sought after commodity in all commercial movie-making on your hands: The Built-In Audience.
Ludicrous you say? Isn't that what you thought when Disney was turning a theme park ride into a movie? A freaking movie about Lego is in the works! I predict this is not the last adaptation of this kind we are going to see. How long the fad will endure depends on whether people keep paying to see renditions of their bedtime stories on the big screen. But there will be at least a few more. The only question is what's next? What follows are five likely candidates. I have included my personal prediction of how each project will go down. I can't say I'm too optimistic.
Blueberries For Sal
This is the story of a girl who goes blueberry picking with her mom but wanders off and gets confused with another young 'un and her mother. The only problem is that other mother and daughter are bears! Could go a lot of directions. I'm picturing a disturbing Werner Herzog thriller about Sal's coming of age while she is forced to survive against the harsh cruelties of nature. The blueberries are a great metaphor - for what I don't know (whoever got that reference I owe a beer). It will be a chilling ride as the endless fields that once blossomed with opportunity soon devolve into an iron prison of fruit. If it had been 2006 either Dakota Fanning or Abigail Breslin would have been a lock to star. Instead the studio will probably push for Miley Cyrus. Stay strong, Werner.
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