Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Famous Roald Dahl Novel Gets Its Big Screen Debut

Jul 22, 2009

November 2009 sees the stop-motion picture release of the children's classic.

American writer/director Wes Anderson holds the honour of both writing and directing all of the seven films on his resume. Although his back-catalogue may not yet be vast, with Hotel Chevalier (2007) being a short film, he has gained much critical acclaim and a big fan-following for his quirky movies so far.

Wes Anderson Filmography

It comes as no surprise that there is much anticipation for his seventh – and first stop-motion animation film – The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). Stop-motion is a form of animation where the inanimate objects are made to appear as if moving on their own. The objects are filmed in individual frames, moved slightly every time so that when the sequence is put together, it gives the appearance of independent movement. One of the most famous examples of this are the Wallace and Gromit films.

As The Fantastic Mr Fox is an adaptation of British author Roald Dahl's (1916 – 1990) children’s story, Anderson’s writer credits on The Fantastic Mr. Fox are obviously restricted to the screenplay.

Fantastic Cast

Wes Anderson has collected a pretty impressive gathering of stars to voice the characters in his film, including Harry Potter actors Michael Gambon (Dumbledore) and Helen McCrory (Narcissa Malfoy) who voice Mr and Mrs Bean.

Hollywood superstars George Clooney and Meryl Streep voice the lead characters of Mr and Mrs Fox. Other acting elite lending their voices are Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Brian Cox and Anjelica Huston. This is Anjelica Huston’s second time appearing in a Roald Dahl adaptation after starring as the Grand High Witch in the 1990 version of The Witches.

Anderson has also given roles to his regular collaborators Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman. Not including Anderson's aforementioned short film, Owen Wilson has either co-written or acted in all of Anderson’s feature length films. Bill Murray has appeared in all of Anderson’s movies bar the very first, Bottle Rocket (1996) and Jason Schwartzman has worked with Anderson three times, including co-writing The Darjeeling Limited (2007).

Other cast inclusions are Apocalypse Now (1979) director, Francis Ford Coppola’s son, Roman Coppola and British singer, formerly of Brit-Pop band Pulp, Jarvis Cocker.

Roald Dahl Adaptations

There have been many adaptations of Roald Dahl’s work in TV, animation and film. Movie versions include:

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