Spike Jonze teams with Arcade Fire for next project | Movie News

Spike Jonze has yet to announce his feature-length follow-up to WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE but that doesn't mean the director isn't keeping busy. He recently premiered his latest short film "I'm Here" online and now he's working on another short film in Austin.

Slashfilm has learned that Slashfilm is in Austin filming an as yet untitled short film that follows a close group of teenage friends that slowly grow apart. He's casting local teen actors for the project and it's unclear if filming has begun in some way. Also slightly unclear is the participation of Arcade Fire.

The band, whose music helped inspire the development process of WTWTA (and you heard "Wake Up" in the film's trailer), is supposedly collaborating with Jonze on the film but the extent of that collaboration is unclear. Are they contributing original music? Appearing in the film? Working with Jonze on the plot? Or something slightly more obvious...

I have no information to back this up but here's my guess: Jonze is actually filming an extended music video for the first track released off of Arcade Fire's upcoming album. The album doesn't have a title or a release date yet (or at least it hasn't been announced) but mid-summer has been the rumor as Will Butler told NME that the band's summer festival slate (which includes appearances at Lollapalooza and the Leeds and Reading Festivals in the UK) would debut music from the album. Assuming the album is released in July, the video would likely be released earlier that month, which would make sense with the timeline.

Again, that's pure speculation at this point but, I think, a pretty educated guess. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what comes of it.

Extra Tidbit: Jonze's last music video was the 2009 UNKLE video "Heaven."