Where the Wild Things Are (film)  Where the Wild Things Are is a 2009 fantasy film directed by Spike Jonze. Written by Jonze and Dave Eggers, it is based on Maurice Sendak's 1963 children's book of the same name. It combines live-action, performers in costumes, animatronics, and computer-generated imagery (CGI). The film stars Max Records and features the voices of James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Lauren Ambrose, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara, and Chris Cooper. The film centers on a lonely boy named Max who sails away to an island inhabited by creatures known as the "Wild Things," who declare Max their king. In the early 1980s, Disney considered adapting the film as a blend of traditionally animated characters and computer-generated environments, but development did not go past a test film to see how the animation hybridizing would result. In 2001, Universal Studios acquired rights to the book's adaptation and initially attempted to develop a computer-animated adaptation with Disney animator Eric Goldberg, but the CGI concept was replaced with a live-action one in 2003, and Goldberg was dropped for Spike Jonze. The film was co-produced by actor Tom Hanks through his production company Playtone and made with an estimated budget of $100 million. "Where the Wild Things Are" was a joint production between Australia, Germany, and the United States, and was filmed principally in Melbourne. The film was released on October 16, 2009, in the United States, on December 3 in Australia, and on December 17 in Germany. The film was met with mostly positive reviews and appeared on many year-end top ten lists. However, the film was a box office failure, making $100.1 million from a budget of $100 million. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 2, 2010.  8-year-old Max, a lonely boy with an active imagination whose parents are divorced, is wearing a wolf costume and chasing his dog. His older sister, Claire, does nothing when her friends crush Max's snow fort with him inside during a snowball fight. Out of frustration, Max messes up her bedroom and destroys a frame he made for her. At school, Max's teacher teaches him and his classmates about the eventual death of the sun. Later his mother, Connie, invites her boyfriend Adrian to dinner. Max becomes upset with his mother for not coming to the fort he made in his room. He wears his wolf costume, acts like an animal, and demands to be fed.