“Let the Wild Rumpus Start!”

By Peter Nevland - Oct 20 , 2009

Monsters roar, colors shriek, terror looms, but one “still” command bows them all at his feet – until the “wild rumpus” begins. You can feel the heat of jungle fires, taste the salty ocean spray, hear your heart pound with fear in the presence of sharpened fangs ready for a tasty treat. It’s the magic that’s ignited children’s excitement around the world, selling 19 million copies since Where the Wild Things Are first achieved publication in 1963.

With a platform like that, it’s a small wonder that a movie version of the book took 46 years to reach theaters. A peek behind the success of its chart-topping weekend opening of $32.7 million reveals the small miracle that the movie ever reached screens at all.

The author himself posed perhaps the greatest challenge. “It took this long because we wanted to get it right,” Maurice Sendak says in a USA Today interview. “Some had approaches I didn’t like, and many were intimidated by the challenge of adapting the book into a movie.” And if someone came to him with an approach he didn’t like, his response most probably mirrored that of his “go to hell” statement to parents concerned that the movie was too scary.

Lucky for them, the film that director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers eventually created turned out to fit Sendak’s vision perfectly. If you’ve seen it, you know that most of the expanded dialog necessary to turn a 338 word book into an hour and a half feature film isn’t devoted to expanded scenes of rumpus-making, jungle adventure, or ocean sailing. It’s an emotional exploration filled with plenty of philosophizing about loneliness, anger, and relationships.

Wow, a kids movie filled with truly frightening monsters that philosophize about their inner feelings and the nature of life. How do you market that? I’m pretty sure that Sendak didn’t package it that way when he first pitched the book to Harper & Row. But that’s the problem that Warner Bros. faced with a finished project that arrived late and over its $80 million budget (it actually cost between $90-$100 million).

Initial screenings were poor, to say the least. “The younger children, the ones under 8, were not as engaged — in fact, they were a little bored,” said Warner Bros. marketing chief, Sue Kroll, in an L.A. Times article recently. “The people who had the best experience with the movie were adults, even adults without children, and teenagers.” To make matters worse, word-of-mouth started circulating the Internet that “children had fled an early test screening in tears.” People knew the movie was out there, but few would come see it if it sounded like a dark children’s movie train wreck waiting to suck $9 out of their pocket.

Warner Bros. must have felt a lot like Max, landing on the monster’s island before he tamed his fear. But it wasn’t them deciding to point their marketing gun at an older audience that won them first prize in the box office ratings this past weekend. It wasn’t even the ecstatic reviews they received from those critics who deeply connected with the movies’ emotional tone. What saved them from financial ruin was the same thing that 19 million people loved most about the book in the first place – “the wild rumpus.”

With all the bad buzz circulating last March, Warner Bros. released a trailer that took the Internet by storm. Avoiding all the dialogue, they attached the movie’s striking visuals to the backdrop of Arcade Fire‘s “Wake up.” Back came the adventure, the monsters, and the sense of imagination. Back came the excitement, especially among young adults, who had connected most with the movie’s test screenings. Even children came to the theater, albeit not like they usually do for family movies, since families with children made up only 43% of the ticketed audience.

Imagine the box office results if the movie had avoided so much melancholy drama the way the trailer aligned itself with the book’s sense of adventure. Profits would have gone through the roof. Having seen the movie myself, I can’t see it producing as much long term success as the original book, despite Warner Bros.’ marketing heroics.

Now put yourself in the place of Warner Bros.’ marketing team. Do you know what causes people to connect the most with your writing? Can you package that in a way that lets publishers know how people will flock to buy your book? If you’re a publisher, can you align your marketing so that the core of your book forms a tight bond with the heartstrings of its intended audience?

The closer you can bring them to palpable fear, spine shivering joy, and a land where their desires reign supreme, the greater your financial return will be. So forget the emotional analysis and explanatory dialogue. Leave it to the critics and intellectuals who are much smarter but make far less money. If you really want to see your book soar, “Let the wild rumpus start!”