With The French Dispatch on its way to delight both indie crowds and mass audiences this award season, the king of modern idiosyncratic directors Wes Anderson has already got his next project in development. Margot Robbie and Tom Hanks are the biggest names attached, as well as the usual Anderson players back in action: Adrien Brody, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Tilda Swinton.
The latest big names to be added to the ensemble include Bryan Cranston, Hope Davis, Jeffrey Wright, and Liev Schreiber (via Hollywood Reporter). Cranston, Robbie, and Schreiber are making their first live-action appearance in an Anderson film, as their previous collaboration with the enormously popular dramedy (comedy-drama) filmmaker was Isle of Dogs, the second stop-motion animated feature in Anderson’s filmography, the first being Fantastic Mr. Fox. The untitled project is currently shooting in Spain.
The plot details are, as expected, kept under wraps, but it has been suggested that the cast for this one is larger than most of Anderson’s other projects, which is a long way away from his debut Bottle Rocket, which featured a pre-fame Wilson brothers duo and an older James Caan. He has gone closer and closer towards the ensemble route since, his most iconic being The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson is expected to wrap shooting in late September, just in time for the opening of The French Dispatch, in October.
Photo credit: Raymond Flotat