Bill Murray Joins Mr. Fox
George Clooney, Jason Schwartzman also in Wes Anderson Movie
Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman have officially joined the cast of Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. No release date yet for stop-motion picture.
The news that Twentieth Century Fox was adapting Roald Dahl's classic children's tale The Fantastic Mr. Fox got a whole lot cooler when the news broke that Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums) was going to direct the flick. Not surprisingly, the director has called on some of his former acting collaborators to voice roles in this new film.
“George Clooney is going to be Mr. Fox," director Anderson recently told MTV Movies. "Bill Murray has a part. Jason (Schwartzman) is doing a voice. That’s our team.”
It's believed that Murray and Schwartzman will play two of the three villainous farmers, Boggis, Bean and Bunce, who attempt to kill the thieving Mr. Fox (Clooney), his wife (Cate Blanchett) and their children. Bill Murray previously worked alongside Schwartzman in Anderson's 1998 flick Rushmore, and starred in 2004's The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, which also featured Blanchett.
Anjelica Huston, who acted in both The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, is also apparently in talks to voice a role in Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2010?
Unfortunately for Dahl and Anderson fans, this movie is still a few years off from making its mondoplex debut.
“It will take a couple years to do the animating,” said Anderson, who is currently promoting the live-action film The Darjeeling Limited, which (big surprise) features Schwartzman and an uncredited cameo from Bill Murray. According to the director, he's about to record the voices for Fantastic Mr. Fox.
As for the animation, Anderson says, “It’s stop-motion. It’s like (Tim Burton's) Nightmare Before Christmas or those Christmas specials (like Santa Claus is Coming to Town). These (characters) have fur, so it’s not like claymation.”
It's a no-brainer that Anderson will want to make this flick different from anything he's ever done before, or any other stop-motion flick produced.
“The settings (for Fantastic Mr. Fox) will be very natural," he says. "We want to use real trees and real sand, but it’s all miniature.”
Fun Fact: Roald Dahl's daughter Chantal Sophie "Tessa" (born in 1957) was also the daughter of actress Patricia Neal. After a brief career as an actress and television host in the 1970's (during which time she was linked romantically with rocker Gary Glitter), Tessa later became a children's author. Her book Gwenda and the Animals won The Earth Best Book of the Year.
Tessa's daughter Sophie also became an author, after being the featured model in Yves St. Laurent's controversial Opium billboard advertisement.
