BREAKING NEWZ!1!!1 from our field correspondent Devin Faraci:

I’m sitting on a train on the way down to San Diego with the filmmakers behind City of Ember, Fox Walden’s big fall release directed by Monster House‘s Gil Kenan. Among the folks trapped on this train car with me is Gary Goetzman, producer of the film and one of the head guys at Playtone, and producer on Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. I talked to Gary about a lot of stuff (including the HBO miniseries The Pacific), but I had to get his take on what was happening with the film.

Good news: Gary says that Spike has final cut. And that Playtone is standing behind him.

“There was an Alan Horn conversation where he said his vision and Spike’s vision weren’t on the same page,” Goetzman said. “We support Spike’s vision. We’re helping him make the vision he wants to make.”

Goetzman does cop to technical problems on the picture – “Spike wanted to do things low tech. He wanted big animatronic Wild Things in the jungle, which look great. As you go deeper in the jungle and weather sets in… We misjudged that, production-wise.”

He dismissed rumors that the film isn’t kid friendly. “Kids are much smarter than [the studio types] think,” Goetzman said. “Spike won’t talk down to kids. He’s got a kid’s soul.”

Talking to Goetzman filled me with a lot of hope – Playtone is artist friendly and Goetzman is adamant we’ll see Spike’s version of the movie. Let’s hope so.