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Your First Look At Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox

Posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 by Russ Fischer

Update: Better photos are now available, click here.

Well, this isn’t what I expected to see at all. For some time, Wes Anderson has been working on his animated adaptation of the Roald Dahl book Fantastic Mr. Fox, using stop motion animation. Now JoBlo has the exclusive first still, and Mr. Fox really has the look of some of the weird semi-animatronic TV shows of the late ’70s. Which makes sense, really, given Anderson’s general sensibility.

The story follows Mr. Fox and his conflict with three mean, greedy farmers from whom he’s been stealing food. Henry Selick was originally set to direct with Anderson after he contributed animated undersea creatures to Life Aquatic. But Selick moved on to Coraline after original producers Revolution Studios folded (hard to argue with that move, having seen the final result of Coraline) and Anderson teamed up instead with Mark Gustafson. He hired George Clooney to voice the title character, Bill Murray to voice his friend Mr. Badger and originally picked Cate Blanchett to voice Mrs. Fox, but she was replaced at some point by Meryl Streep. Anderson recorded the voice actors outside a traditional studio, hoping to get an unusual spontaneity from doing sessions in a forest and stable.

Meanwhile, when will we get a trailer? There was a lot of speculation that one would be attached to Ice Age 3 or 500 Days of Summer, but our sources now say we won’t see anything until August. But attached to what? Fox only has Post Grad that month, and Fox Searchlight isn’t pushing anything at all. Disney’s got Ponyo, which is certainly the closest in spirit, so could we see the trailer mid-month as audiences are paying attention to Miyazaki’s new movie? Regardless, that’s not so long to wait, after reading about this movie for the past five years.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is set for release on November 13, but there is speculation that the world premiere will be at the Venice Film Festival, which begins on September 2. The film also seems a likely pick for the Toronto Film Fest, which begins a week later.

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  • on the bright side it HAS to be better then his previous movies.
  • cdeforesth
    they look like the mechanical characters from some disney ride, like splash mountain or something. a huge fan, but i'm kind of worried.
  • Alex
    I agree. This reminds me of Country Bear Jamboree.
  • Alright... haha
  • BrendonConnelly
    Not a convincing still at all. If that's the best they can do to launch our impressions of this film... I'm worried.
  • Millicent
    I never thought I'd see my favorite director from my youth direct my favorite childhood book. I never even thought I'd see the book made into a feature, as the story is so simple. This can only make me love them both more or ruin my opinion of them forever.
  • Snorthog
    Fucking creepy...
  • Hmmm, as much as I appreciate his choice of stop-motion, these characters do not seem as stylish as one might expect from Anderson. Especially compared to the masterpiece that was Coraline. The design of these characters comes of as somewhat clumsy and cluttered.
    Not that you can tell that much from one little cropped picture. The trailer will give a better indication of the look of the film and you need to see it motion too.
    at any rate this is not the most succesful first look.

    Also that logo is bothering me; a Wes Anderson film without its titles in Futura?
  • biggles12
    I stood next to Wes Anderson in a bookshop the other day.
  • anticipating
    I'm having way too much faith in something that's creepin me out
  • Egger_Buckland
    The world needs more stop-motion films. Thank you Wes Anderson. I'm interested to see if this has a more true-to-life feeling than most (any?) stop-motion animation I've seen. Looking forward to it very much.
  • Looks strange, but I'll give it a try.
  • im on the fence about this one, i think andersen is kind of over-rated
  • Anderson is one of the weirdest directors to ever hold a camera, bar none. Maybe David Lynch comes close.
  • max Winston
    I really hope you're kidding. He makes very normal films...
  • Quirky, yes.

    Weirdest? Hardly.

    Also: directors don't hold the camera...
  • Rockie
    hahaha.....perfection
  • Octoberist
    I can't tell what the picture is: stop motion or CGI..
  • Nikhil
    this movie is going to be sick. Wes Anderson is awesome
  • dagreenman18
    Look weird, but it's Wes so ill follow him on this one.
  • nate
    If Wes Anderson wasn't doing this, I'd have less than zero interest. But he is, so it's one of my most anticipated films of the year. I think it'll be interesting to see if he actually steps out and makes a film different than his previous five, or if it'll just be an animated Bottle Rocket 6. I'm fine with either, really.
  • Tom
    I loved all Wes Anderson movies, Bottle Rocket through The Life Aquatic. The Darjeeling Limited had it's moments, but Wes needs and Owen brother to help with the dry comedy. Who knows what the fuck this will be (never read the book), but I'll have to check it out
  • Joe
    I'll have to see a trailer before I can make a basic judgment, although I do wish it had been a more stylized world, an equivalent to animals like Coraline's stylized humans.
  • LOIV
    Yeah, what DO you mean? You've only seen one still... and he's wearing pajamas... that at least hints at some base broad stylistic choices to me.
  • Joe
    I mean a more cartoony style instead of the psuedo-NightmareFuel that these puppets look like...
  • LOIV
    My nightmares could use new material frankly.
  • Emerson
    This is going to be the first wes anderson movie I despise
  • woooooow. i think i could actually look forward to this. i thought it was going to look like some dreamworks/pixar style. but this picture has me really curious. i love everything wes anderson has done and this up until now was something i wasn't holding my breath on.
  • Dhelt
    Looks embarassing
  • Gelman
    The first thing it made me think of was "Howard the Duck."
  • Jeff
    Russ, you say "(hard to argue with that move, having seen the final result)" but are you referring to the final result of Coraline, the final result of the look for Anderson's film, or the result of the folding studio? I'm confused.
  • RussFischer
    I meant of Coraline, but you're right, it wasn't clear. (I added the bit about Revolution and never re-worded.) Edited to clarify.
  • Jeff
    Thanks, keep up the good work.
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