Wes Anderson grabs stellar cast for 'Moonrise Kingdom'

By Sarah Sluis

Focus has announced that it will distribute Moonrise Kingdom, writer/director Wes Anderson's latest project. The low-profile movie has already started filming, with a pretty incredible cast. Anderson film veterans Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman will appear, along with Tilda Swinton, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, and Frances McDormand. I'm particularly excited about seeing Willis in an Anderson movie. I think he should be able to rein in Anderson's quirk and provide a good foil for the other characters.

Set in the 1960s, the action starts with a 12-year-old couple (fresh faces Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) who decide to run away together. The folks in their small New England town (which is also on an island) notice, predictably. Willis plays the sheriff orchestrating the search, and McDormand and Norton play the kids' parents. Anderson knows how to use ensemble casts. Even Fantastic Mr. Fox was filled with a menagerie of rats, weasels, badgers, and otters. Anderson has also created memorable child characters, from the flashbacks to the Tenenbaum children to the incredibly human Max Fischer in Rushmore. Like Fantastic Mr. Fox, this film might be another chance for Anderson to shed his title as "Most Imitated Director in Student Films."

Since 2005, I've been convinced by this Slate essay that Wes Anderson's best work came when Owen Wilson co-wrote his screenplays, giving the work a more common touch and grounding the quirk. For Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson has teamed with Roman Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay for The Darjeeling Limited. Wilson may make his mark on the film, but probably in a cameo, since he's been a bit cagey about his involvement in the press.

Anderson's previous three films were distributed through Fox Searchlight, so this will be the first chance for Focus to take a crack at marketing to Anderson's audience. Since the film's already in production, it will come out in 2012 at the latest, giving Anderson fans plenty of time to hope that his next film will be a home run, and not some of the doubles and triples he's been hitting lately.