Fantastic Mr. Fox by Wes Anderson

[Jimmy Kustes]

It's exactly what I predicted in my article (http://portfolio.bellarmine.edu/jkustes01/wesliterature.htm). Wes Anderson is going to be the next Tim Burton.

He told Entertainment Weekly (http://p210.ezboard.com/fyankeeracers33503frm3.showMessage?topicID=319.topic) that he is interested in making an animated film based off Fantastic Mr. Fox. He also wrote a New York Times article previous about how he visited Roald Dahl’s wife in order to talk about making the film. But in that article it didn't say it would be animated.

My suggestion would be to get Kevin Kaliher to design the film:
http://www.toonzone.net/shows/images/cartoon-network/t-bigpick2001-kittybobo.jpg
(picture on Toon Zone server, so don't link to it outside of here)

If they did it right (in America, no exec-muddling), this would be a great way for cartoons to return to modern-day Disney. That is if the film is released by them since Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, and Life Aquatic have all been released by Disney. Bottle Rocket was released by Sony and James L. Brooks though so maybe there is some hope.

[Killtacular]

If they did it right (in America, no exec-muddling), this would be a great way for cartoons to return to modern-day Disney.
I don't want cartoons to return to any era of Disney. I want to see a new 'dynasty'.

[Behonkiss]

A new dynasty of what? 2D?

I'm hopeful that this will be good, but I don't know; I never found the book to be one of Dahl's best works, and I have yet to see a good animated film based on his books.

[Jimmy Kustes]

Well, he could always take his film to another distributer. Although, being under the Disney label never hurt Nightmare Before Christmas. It did hurt Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it got editted.

[Fone Bone]

God, I loved that book. If this is anything like James and the Giant Peach, we're in for a treat.

[Behonkiss]

Or not.

[Jimmy Kustes]

From comingsoon.net:


Wes Anderson and the stars of his latest comedy The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou gathered in the lower tip of New York City on Monday to talk about their movie, which opened in New York and L.A. last Friday, and few of them were hesitant to talk to ComingSoon.net about some of their upcoming projects.

The movie stars Bill Murray as the oceanographer/filmmaker who takes his team on a hunt for the deadly shark that killed his best friend, and like Anderson's last film The Royal Tenenbaums, it features another amazing ensemble cast that includes Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldblum.

What makes the film truly unique from Anderson's past work is the inventive undersea creatures created by stop-motion animator Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas). Wes Anderson and his co-writer Noah Baumbach have already been working on the script for their adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which will also be animated by Selick, who previous visualized Dahl's work having directed James and the Giant Peach in 1996. "It's something that I loved growing up and I wanted to work with Henry again," Anderson told us. "We're about halfway through the script."

In an exclusive interview with ComingSoon.Net, Selick admitted that he was already discussing "Mr. Fox" with Anderson when the director realized that Selick's animation would also be perfect for "The Life Aquatic". Selick told us a little about their next collaboration. "It's going to be all animated, but it may be a blend of a few techniques. Right now, Wes is thinking that all the characters in it will be stop-motion. The animals will be very lifelike, except where they wear clothes and talk, but the humans will be crude caricatures. But then some of the backgrounds, say like a moving field of wheat or a sky with clouds, will be another hand animation technique. As far as compositing and blending, we will use CG or whatever it takes to make it look good."

In the meantime, Selick is working on his adaptation of Neil Gaiman's bestselling children's book Coraline. "It's sort of an Alice in the Wonderland story about a little girl who discovers a passageway in her house that takes her to a mirror of her own life where her other mother and father live. It's a fantastic world that has been created for her that's very scary and dark and fun. It was kind of about Neil's daughter and her relationship to a very busy mother and father."

We asked Selick how he got involved with that project. "This goes back about three years ago. Neil came to me with his book that he had been working on part- time for many years but wasn't even finished yet. He asked me to read it and asked if I wanted to get involved. I loved it, so I took it to Bill Mechanic, who had just left Fox, where he had been head of motion pictures. He came on as an independent producer, and I tricked them both into letting me write the screenplay, and that took about a year and a half until I finally got a really good draft in October 2002. The book was released that year and became a New York Times bestseller, so there's a certain amount of impetus on that project."

Selick hopes to have the project done in a little over two years, but he will likely start working on the Anderson animated project before then. "With Wes' project, I can't do them both exactly at once, but I'd look for a way to do an overlap. 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' is more his movie. I would co-direct with him, but he's writing it and only he will know when the screenplay will get done. As far as the design and look, he'll be heavily involved. It will be a little different [for both of us] and very interesting." (Look for more from Henry on his work on these projects in our exclusive interview later this week.)....
It's rumored he is leaving Touchstone for Sony for this movie.