Where the Wild Things Are is a 2009 American fantasy drama film directed by Spike Jonze and adapted from Maurice Sendak's 1963 children's book Where the Wild Things Are. 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 around a lonely eight-year-old 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 settings, but development did not go past a test film to see how the animation hybridizing would work out. 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 animated version was replaced with a live-action concept 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 on an estimated budget of around $100,000,000.

Christopher Walken (/ˈwɔːkən/; born March 31, 1943) is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including The Deer Hunter, Annie Hall, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New York, True Romance, Catch Me If You Can, Pulp Fiction, Wedding Crashers, The Rundown, Click, and Hairspray, as well as music videos by recording artists such as Madonna, Journey, Run DMC, The Left Rights and Fatboy Slim.

Walken's films have grossed more than $1.8 billion in the United States. He has also played the main role in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Coriolanus. He is also a popular guest-host of Saturday Night Live, having hosted 7 times as of April 2008. His most notable roles on the show include record producer Bruce Dickinson (no relation to the singer with the same name) in the "More Cowbell" sketch and his multiple appearances as The Continental.