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Comic-Con: ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ gets an intro from its pint-sized star

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Max Records is 11, and he’s never been in front of a Comic-Con-sized crowd before. So it’s OK if he reads notes about his movie, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ off of the palm of his hand.

“Wow, this is a lot of people,’ he said, a little startled. ‘I haven’t really done anything like this before.’

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Before introducing the trailer and additional footage from ‘Wild Things,’ Records said he’d recently talked to author Maurice Sendak, who wrote the 1963 kids story book classic. Sendak told him, “You know, I really love this movie, and I just hope people like it. Because if not, they can go straight to hell.”

In a filmed clip Sendak said director Spike Jonze’s version of the story “maintains the peculiarness” of the book. “There will be controversy,” he said.

‘Wild Things’ revolves around a boy with anger issues who escapes to an imaginary land where giant beasts roam. To get the right-sized reactions to the fantastical world out of Records, Jonze apparently resorted to a bit of trickery.

‘A lot of people ask what it was like working with Spike,’ Records said. ‘Instead of acting, he wanted real emotions, so in the middle of shooting a scene where I’m supposed to act surprised he got a huge propane tank and lit a huge flame over me. And it kinda worked.’

-- Denise Martin

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