Wes Anderson Returns to Animation and Journeys to Japan with ‘Isle of Dogs’

Writer and director Wes Anderson returns to stop-motion animation in his upcoming film, Isle of Dogs. The animated feature, set twenty years in the future, follows Atari Kobayashi, a 12-year-old boy who journeys to find his pet, Spots, after the corrupt mayor banishes Megasaki City’s dogs to an island composed of garbage. Once on the island, Kobayashi is aided by a pack of stray dogs who, in typical Anderson fashion, all possess a deadpan sense of humor.

The all-star voice cast features the talent of Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Liev Schreiber, Tilda Swinton, Greta Gerwig, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, and, of course, Bill Murray. This will be Murray’s 8th feature film collaboration with Anderson while Norton and Swinton have both appeared in Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

2009 marked the debut of Anderson’s first animated film, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel Fantastic Mr. Fox. The stop-motion film went on to be nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score); however, it lost to Pixar’s Up.

Isle of Dogs is set for a March 2018 release from Fox Searchlight.

Watch the trailer below:

Sean Arenas: Sean Arenas is a writer and musician from Los Angeles, CA. Besides mxdwn Movies, he writes for Playboy and Razorcake, a nonprofit, bimonthly music magazine, where he has contributed over 200 record, book, and film reviews. He has also published his first short story in Cabildo Quarterly, a Massachusetts-based literary journal. Sean's favorite directors are Terry Gilliam, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Chan-Wook Park, John Carpenter, and Takashi Miike.
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