16 Wes Anderson Movies (The Phoenician Scheme), Ranked by Tomatometer

(Photo by Focus / courtesy Everett Collection. THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME.)

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The latest: The Phonecian Scheme is Anderson’s seventh Certified Fresh feature film in a row, the streak starting with 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox.

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Texas played its part in the revolution of ’90s American independent cinema. Dazed and Confused put Richard Linklater and Austin on the map. John Sayles made his most thrilling movie there, the neo-Western Lone Star. And emerging from Houston with an offbeat crime-caper was Wes Anderson. Bottle Rocket fizzled at the box office, but it was a crucial calling card for the director and his band of collaborators, like actors Owen and Luke Wilson, and cinematographer Robert Yeoman. And when Martin Scorsese compares your debut to the likes of McCarey and Renoir, you’re probably gonna get another chance in the industry. Bill Murray signing up for Anderson’s second feature, Rushmore, elevated the movie’s stature and release, and introduced Bill’s re-invention as the Melancholy Murray.

Bottle Rocket and Rushmore‘s growing reputations, and Anderson’s own as a modern auteur, generated significant hype for his third film, The Royal Tenenbaums. With its star-studded ensemble cast, the multigenerational comedy-epic would be Anderson’s highest box office earner until Grand Budapest Hotel, and got him into the Academy’s good graces with a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination. Tenenbaums also represents the point Anderson took total command of his craft: Whereas his quirky sensibilities and measured shot compositions enhanced the real-world settings of his first two films, from Tenebaums on that ‘quirk’ would represent all points of reality in his work. Watching an Anderson movie means escaping into a medley of ornate sets, clean lines and angles, impeccable blocking, precisely-picked pop music, and curious dialogue and action.

That was certainly the case for next feature The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, where Anderson was gifted $50 million and carte blanche to shoot whatever he wanted. Which, of course, meant building your own ship, shooting on choppy sea waters and at the famed Cinecittà Studios in Rome, and hiring Henry Selick to animate seahorses. Life Aquatic bombed at the box office and critics were iffy on the slack pacing, but audiences have since boosted up Steve as fashion icon and man of action whilst mired in Millennial malaise.

The Darjeeling Limited is mostly a minor entry, bordering on self-parody as his style continued to wallop character and story. When it was announced Anderson’s next project would be a stop-motion animated movie based on a Roald Dahl story, it was almost too perfectly, eye-rollingly twee. But like knocking out the cedar stick at Whackbat, Fantastic Mr. Fox was a jubilant, all-ages success. Anderson stayed young at heart with Moonrise Kingdom, an intimate adventure of first love and organized scouting, which drew the best reviews of his career and his first significant grosser in a decade.

That would all be topped with his arguable masterpiece, The Grand Budapest Hotel, a dizzying trip through alternate history, meta-fiction, shootouts, and Renaissance paintings, and one very pretty building. It earned Anderson another Best Screenplay Oscar nomination, his first nomination for Best Director, and the film won for Original Score, Editing, Production, and Costume. After four years, his longest gap between films, he put out another stop-motion film, the dystopian, Japan-set Isle of Dogs, which was nominated for Best Animated Feature.

(Photo by Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection. Thumbnail: DreamWorks SKG, Buena Vista Pictures, Fox Searchlight, Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)

52 Best Stop-Motion Animated Movies of All Time

Tangible and physical, stop-motion animation is the art of manipulating objects and figures frame by frame, creating the illusion of fluid movement. It’s an almost atavistic art form of ours: Instinct tells us if you have a lump of clay in your hands, start making stuff out of it. Shape a chicken and a fox, mold some pirates, heck, make a movie. It’s what filmmakers have been doing for over a century, so we’re taking a look through time with the 47 best stop-motion animated movies ever made.

In this guide, we’ll come in contact with the different materials and styles used in stop motion. Clay has led to the creation of one of animation’s most enduring man-and-canine duos, Wallace and Gromit, created by Nick Park. His films and studio, Aardman, have an outsized presence in that scene, with the likes of Chicken Run and Shaun the Sheep. Paper cutout stop-motion animation is less frequently used. See it at its trippy best with Fantastic Planet, and in The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the oldest surviving animated film.

Puppet stop-motion animation has been the preferred method for venerable directors like Tim Burton (producer of The Nightmare Before Christmas), Charlie Kaufman (Anomalisa), and Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox). Anderson collaborated with Nightmare-director Henry Selick to animate the marine fauna in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; afterwards, Selick set up shop at studio Laika, where he gave them their first big hit, Coraline. Laika has been a stop-motion powerhouse since, using a cutting-edge mix of puppets, clay, and computer enhancements to fuel a string of Certified Fresh films, including The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings.

Of course, no stop-motion list feels complete without a drawn-out tribute to legendary animator Ray Harryhausen. He got his start on 1949’s Mighty Joe Young (working with the same team behind the milestone ape effects of King Kong), and over the next three decades, ignited imaginations in fantasy and sword-and-sandals by bringing monsters to life in films like Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans. Other films that combine live-action and and stop-motion include Selick’s James and the Giant Peach and Jan Svankmajer’s Alice. After gathering all of the films across cinema history, we’re sorting them by Tomatometer, with Certified Fresh films first.

Most recently, we’ve added the Certified Fresh horror film called (what else?) Stopmotion to the list.

Now, read on to discover the best stop-motion animated movies! —Alex Vo

(Photo by Sony/courtesy Everett Collection)

All Owen Wilson Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

We’re ranking Gerard Butler movies by Tomatometer, from Wes Anderson collaborations (The Royal Tenenbaums, The French Dispatch), audience favorites (Cars, Wedding Crashers, Marley & Me), and award winners (Midnight in Paris, Wonder). —Alex Vo

(Photo by Touchstone/courtesy Everett Collection)

All Bill Murray Movies Ranked

From tales of crashing bachelor parties and kickball games, to intimate fan pranks that he knows the public will never believe, to his unavailabity outside of a 1-800 number, the antics of lord of chaos Bill Murray could overshadow his actual job as an actor. But this decade alone has seen Certified Fresh hits like Moonrise Kingdom, The Jungle Book, Grand Budapest Hotel, and St. Vincent.

The output compares handsomely even to his ’80s heyday, which saw the likes of Ghostbusters, Stripes, Caddyshack, and Scrooged put into theaters. The ’90s not only had his lead-starring masterpiece Groundhog Day, but also the zany What About Bob?, and his first reinvention as the patron saint of comedic melancholia, Rushmore. All that paved the way for his towering 2000s output, featuring The Royal Tenenbaums, Lost in Translation, his Best Actor-nominated Broken Flowers, and Garfield…which we’re mentioning because it led directly to his inspired cameo in Zombieland.

Now, take a look at Bill Murray movies ranked by Tomatometer. —Alex Vo

(Photo by DreamWorks Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)

All George Clooney Movies Ranked

Having the #1 TV show to fall back on when starting a movie career was a good thing for George Clooney, especially when he was alternately starring in groovy, off-beat genre flicks (From Dusk till Dawn, Out of Sight) and helping destroy a comic book franchise (Batman & Robin). But by 1999, Clooney was ready to cut the cord on ER, paving the way for immediate movie breakthroughs in comedy (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), blockbusters (Ocean’s Eleven), and even as a director himself, with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which we’re including on this list because he also stars.

As seen beginning with Confessions, the cross-section of politics and media would be a driving concern for Clooney’s acting choices, such as Syriana, Michael Clayton, The Ides of March, Money Monster, and Good Night, and Good Luck. Yet he also switches to the broad buffoon with ease, especially with the Coen brothers, as in O Brother, Burn After Reading, and Hail, Caesar!. Somewhere in between this Bawdy George and Serious George, you’ll find material that has drawn Clooney some of his highest marks: Fantastic Mr. Fox, Up In the Air, and The Descendants, the latter two for which he was Best Actor Oscar-nominated.

Up until directing himself in 2020’s The Midnight Sky, Clooney hadn’t appeared in a narrative feature since 2016. Meanwhile, he got top billing in Grizzly II: Revenge, a film shot in 1983 that wasn’t completed and released until 2021. Will the movie finally restore Clooney’s rightful original career path as horror movie maven? We’ll just have to wait an see — until then, we’re looking back on all George Clooney movies, ranked by Tomatometer! —Alex Vo

(Photo by Fox Searchlight/courtesy Everett Collection)

All Wes Anderson Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

Wes Anderson‘s first feature, 1996’s Bottle Rocket, bombed at the box office, perplexing studios and audiences with its quirky characters and filmmaking. If only they knew what was in store. Compared to the pastel-colored, stop-motion, insistently symmetrical fantasias Anderson has gone on to craft over the past two decades, Bottle Rocket‘s off-beat tale of amateur crooks ambling about in West Texas is practically Italian neo-realism.

But Anderson’s style was already emerging then, along with his choice of the collaborators that would elevate him into a zeitgeist-defining career. Namely, one Owen C. Wilson, who starred in and co-wrote Bottle Rocket. Wilson would go on to co-write Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, then become a feature player in the Andersonverse for many features beyond. Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman joined the troupe in 1998 with Rushmore. By 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson films were leaving reality behind, inviting us to a nostalgic, melancholic world of the director’s own creation. Tenenbaums would earn Anderson his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Original Screenplay category. Even more fulfilling: Margot and Richie Tenenbaum would become a Halloween staple for panicking, last-minute hipsters for decades to come.

The success of Tenenbaums allowed Anderson to nab his largest budget ever, along with carte blanche on how to shoot his twee epic The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou. The production involved being at sea for months, hiring Henry Selick to handcraft exotic underwater fauna, and residency at the legendary Cinecittà studio in Italy, where Fellini, Leone, Coppola, Scorsese, and many more legends have worked. Steve Zissou‘s plot was as choppy as the ocean in storm, leading to Anderson’s worst reviews, though its aesthetic would influence pop culture and the art world at large. (And it features in our book, Rotten Movies We Love.)

After his minor work, The Darjeeling Limited, Anderson released a comeback hit: Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was the first time he would work directly in stop-motion animation, with the film’s scratchy, tactile quality unlike anything seen on the big screen in decades.

Since then, it’s been a golden age for Anderson and his fans, with the jubilant, romantic, adventure sweep of Moonrise Kingdom, the Best Picture- and Best Director-nominated Grand Budapest Hotel, and the sublimely strange Isle of Dogs. His latest film The French Dispatch stars, unsurprisingly, everybody. Now we’re ranking all Wes Anderson movies by Tomatometer!

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(Photo by Brigitte Lacombe / TM & Copyright (c) 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved./courtesy Everett Collection. Thumbnail: Universal/courtesy Everett Collection.)

All Meryl Streep Movies, Ranked By Tomatometer

Meryl Streep landed her first Oscar nomination for just her second on-screen role: 1978’s The Deer Hunter, opposite John Cazale. A few more performances after that and she’d find herself standing before Hollywood’s elite, accepting the gold trophy for her complex “villain” role in 1980’s Kramer vs. Kramer. Stardom came within that decade, as she made her mark across disparate films and genres, becoming versatility personified in the acting game, as featured in a Best Picture winner (Out of Africa), rom-coms (Heartburn), political social thrillers (Silkwood), dramas (Sophie’s Choice), and period pieces (Ironweed).

This canny ability to wedge and dissolve into roles that sparked her attention has been rewarded with a record 21 Oscar nominations over decades, winning three for Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, and The Iron Lady. Yes, there were noms for so-called Oscar bait like Doubt, The Post, and the actually-Rotten Iron Lady, but Streep pulled nominations out of more unique genres, like musicals (Into the Woods), broad comedies (The Devil Wears Prada, Florence Foster Jenkins), and wherever you want to categorize Adaptation.

Streep’s most recent films have been Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation, and the mostly-ignored The Laundromat. She must’ve enjoyed the Steven Soderbergh experience on Laundromat, because she’s teaming up with him again for comedy Let Them All Talk next. Additionally, she’s got another musical (along with the Mamma Mia! movies, they’ve been a late-career boon) in the works in The Prom, from Ryan Murphy. And now, we’re celebrating with all Meryl Streep movies, ranked by Tomatometer! —Alex Vo

(Photo by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection. Thumbnail image: 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved. Courtesy: Everett Collection.; Warner Brothers/courtesy Everett Collection; MGM.)

50 Essential Movies For Kids

Looking to enrich your kid’s viewing habits? Or if you’re under 13 yourself, love movies, and you want to watch some of the best ever made, take it from us when we list 50 Essential Movies For Kids!

These are not just great children’s movies, but movies that play well for the curious and growing mind. While all these movies are classics and can be seen at any age, some have stronger themes than others that would play better during upper years. So, we separated the movies in suggested age categories:

Ages 1-5: Kids may not actively recall everything from this age, but a good baseline is fundamental in developing a healthy appetite for movies. Here we feature colorful classics (The Wizard of Oz), fun adventures (Chicken Run), and tales as old as time (Beauty and the Beast).

Ages 6-9: As more time is devoted to school and outside life, movies become more of an escape, and their power to transport starts to become apparent. Don’t miss out on epic quests (Star Wars), wish fulfillment (Home Alone), and dazzling fantasies (Spirited Away).

Ages 10-12: The magic window, the time in life when movies can move and change tweens, and stick for the rest of time. A good era for the classic portrayals of youth (The 400 Blows), face-melting action (Raiders of the Lost Ark), and romance (Romeo & Juliet).

Whether you’re a parent looking for a moral, entertaining movie night with your kids, or you’re a young student of movies making the leap on your own, check out these 50 Essential Movies For Kids! —Alex Vo

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Ages 10-12

It certainly isn’t every day that we get a stop-motion feature about a young man’s quest to rescue his dog from government-imposed island quarantine, but when it does happen, there isn’t a working director better equipped to handle it than Wes Anderson — which makes it an awfully good thing that Anderson’s latest feature, this weekend’s Isle of Dogs, tells exactly that story. In celebration of Anderson’s latest return to theaters, we’ve decided to take a look back at the films that brought us here, while once again asking you to rank your personal favorites. You know what that means: it’s time for Total Recall!

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Use the arrows to rank the movies, or click here to see them ranked by Tomatometer!

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

 

Over the course of her prolific and eclectic career, Meryl Streep has racked up a whopping 30 Golden Globe nominations, eight of which she won. She’s also taken home three Oscars and two Emmys, and with the 74th Golden Globe Awards arriving this weekend, we thought it was a great time to look back at her critical highlights. From comedies to musicals to dramas, Meryl’s done it all, so let’s revisit the best-reviewed films from her illustrious career, Total Recall style!

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10.  Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) 90%

American divorce rates spiked during the late 1960s and continued to rise during the 1970s, turning the broken marriage from a private shame into a national phenomenon. And while our growing fascination with America’s seeming inability to stay hitched undoubtedly produced some questionable entertainment, it also inspired some truly touching commentary on modern-day relationships — such as 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer, Robert Benton’s adaptation of the Avery Corman novel about an ad exec (Dustin Hoffman) who struggles to establish a connection with — and later fights to keep custody of — his young son after being left by his wife (Streep). A classic tearjerker, Kramer vs. Kramer won five Oscars (including Best Supporting Actress for Streep) and earned raves from critics like Michael Booth of the Denver Post, who called it “definitely a movie to watch together — your kids may well seek shelter under your arm, glad to know their own families enjoy more peace.”

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9.  The Bridges of Madison County (1995) 90%

Clint Eastwood, master of cinematic understatement, directing and starring in an adaptation of Robert James Waller’s best-selling, critically reviled tearjerker? It seemed like a pretty daffy idea, at least until The Bridges of Madison County unspooled on screens in the summer of 1995 — at which point disbelieving critics were forced to doff their caps to Eastwood once again, this time for finding the smartly tender love story at the heart of Waller’s book. As sensitive photographer Robert Kincaid, Eastwood was playing against type more strongly than at any point since White Hunter, Black Heart, but his gamble paid off, and if anything, critics were even more impressed with Meryl Streep’s performance as the hausfrau Eastwood sweeps off her feet. It was, in the words of Cole Smithey, “perhaps the only time in history a movie was far better than its source material.”

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8.  One True Thing (1998) 86%

A mother-daughter cancer drama with a Bette Midler ballad over the closing credits? As Nigel Tufnel might say, you can get “none more Streep” than 1998’s One True Thing. But even if it makes no bones about adhering to the three-hankie weepie formula, this is one case where that formula works: the story of a woman (Renee Zellweger) forced to put her career on hold in order to care for her estranged mother (Streep) after she learns she doesn’t have long to live. Will the long-squabbling women develop a new understanding? Was Streep nominated for another Best Actress Oscar? You don’t even need to ask. But what might surprise you is how low One True Thing ends up on the schmaltz spectrum. As Kevin N. Laforest pointed out for the Montreal Film Journal, “Thanks to Carl Franklin’s clever direction, which always stays real close to the characters, what could have been a TV movie-of-the-week becomes a thought-provoking and touching film.”

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7.  Postcards From the Edge (1990) 83%

In 1990’s Postcards from the Edge, adapted from Carrie Fisher’s semi-autobiographical novel, Streep plays an actress with a substance abuse problem, issues with her mother (Shirley MacLaine), and a terribly dysfunctional relationship with a sleazy producer who takes advantage of her without the slightest bit of remorse (Dennis Quaid). It was a meaty part, in other words — and one that earned her a by-now-predictable Best Actress Oscar nomination. “In this era of postverbal cinema,” wrote TIME’s Richard Corliss, “Postcards proves that movie dialogue can still carry the sting, heft and meaning of the finest old romantic comedy.”

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6.  Adaptation (2002) 90%

Plenty of writers have suffered writer’s block, or taken an assignment only to realize they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. It took Charlie Kaufman, though, to turn the experience into a film: Adaptation was inspired by his struggles to adapt Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief for Jonathan Demme. Streep played Orlean, while Cage played a fictionalized version of Kaufman, as well as his entirely fictional twin, Donald. It’s the kind of knotty, layered meta-picture that everyone was looking for from Spike Jonze after Being John Malkovich — and that tends to leave unsuspecting audiences befuddled and critics clamoring for more. Adaptation delivered on both counts, racking up an impressive 91 percent Tomatometer to go with its middling $33 million worldwide gross. In the words of the New York Times’ A.O. Scott, “Mr. Cage and Mr. Jonze share a casual, daredevil sensibility, and the two of them — or should I say the three of them? — pull off one of the most amazing technical stunts in recent film history.”

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5.  A Cry in the Dark (1988) 94%

By the late 1980s, Streep’s name was synonymous with award-winning, heart-wrenching dramas that, as often as not, required her to speak with an accent — and A Cry in the Dark fit right into that easily mockable subgenre, to the extent that the movie’s best-known line eventually became a Seinfeld gag. Setting all that aside, however, this is the kind of movie actors dream of: a fact-based drama about a mother accused — and ultimately wrongfully convicted of — killing her own child. But while Cry could easily have served as a hollow pulpit for its star, director Fred Schepsi created a sensitive, well-rounded film with a message. As Sheila Benson wrote for the Los Angeles Times, “Streep and Sam Neill are the film’s perfectly matched thoroughbreds. But the film is neither a double star turn nor the best kind of courtroom drama; it is a sort of epic mosaic of national character.”

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4.  Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) 93%

These days, it’s a rare animated film that doesn’t boast a star-studded cast, but most of them don’t attract the sort of award-hoarding talent that Wes Anderson lined up for Fantastic Mr. Fox, his stop-motion adaptation of the Roald Dahl book about a rascally fox (George Clooney) whose devotion to his wife (Streep) is tested by his need to have the last laugh against a trio of bloodthirsty farmers. Rounded out by an eclectic list of co-stars that included Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson, Fox thrilled critics like Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News, who called it “A visual treasure that successfully blends deadpan quirkiness with a wry realism rarely seen in any film, let alone one for children.”

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3.  The Deer Hunter (1978) 86%

Streep came to The Deer Hunter with only one minor film role to her credit, and according to legend, the screenplay spent so little time on her character that director Michael Cimino suggested she write her own lines. Whatever happened must have worked, because Streep earned her first Oscar nomination for her work in this harrowing classic about the travails of three steel workers (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage) during and after the Vietnam War. Although Cimino was criticized by some for allegedly fictionalizing elements of the war, Hunter‘s themes resonated powerfully with the Academy — which awarded it five Oscars, including Best Picture — as well as critics like Wesley Lovell, who called it “A visceral film that says volumes about the horrors of war and its impact on the lives of typically well adjusted people.”

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2.  Defending Your Life (1991) 92%

Much of Albert Brooks’ best comedy comes from his sharply funny observations of — and reactions to — the stress of modern living. With 1991’s Defending Your Life, he took things a step further, playing an uptight ad exec for whom death is merely a prelude to a court case before an afterlife tribunal where he has to prove himself worthy of moving on. Complicating matters: his budding love for a woman (Streep) who seems a shoo-in for admission past the pearly gates. Expertly blending acid comedy with uplifting drama, Defending won over critics like Desson Thomson of the Washington Post, who wrote, “This is definitely Brooks’s day in court, and he makes comic heaven of it.”

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1.  Manhattan (1979) 93%

Love him or hate him, Woody Allen is one of Hollywood’s best screenwriters when it comes to penning interesting roles for female actors — which is why he’s worked with so many of the best over the course of his distinguished career. With 1979’s Manhattan, Allen gave his neurotic TV writer character an author ex-wife (Streep) and dropped himself in the middle of a love triangle between a teenager (Mariel Hemingway) and an intellectual (Diane Keaton). Unlikely? Perhaps, but as any film buff will be happy to tell you, it’s also smart, exceedingly well-written, and never less than absorbing. As Vincent Canby wrote for the New York Times when Manhattan was released, “Mr. Allen’s progress as one of our major filmmakers is proceeding so rapidly that we who watch him have to pause occasionally to catch our breath.”

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Finally, here’s Streep receiving her 2011 Kennedy Center Honor from President Obama:

Fox’s got a new Ice Age and it’s set on collision course for theaters this Friday. Animation at the studio has weaved a winding line through Saturday morning cartoons, adult fare, and studio closures before lifting Fox as one of Hollywood’s major animated players decades later, alongside Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks. In this week’s gallery, we look at 24 films and TV shows highlighting the history of Fox Animation.

Steven Spielberg’s first family movie since 1991’s Hook is in theaters this week: The BFG, adaptation of the beloved Roald Dahl children’s book. The cross-pollination of two talented storytelling titans inspires this week’s gallery: 24 Certified Fresh children’s book movie adaptations!

Few industries enjoy taking really, really, really long extended holiday vacations quite like Hollywood. So when we get to this time of the year, there’s really not much in the realm of “movie development news” to discuss. This is especially true in a weekly column which normally includes 10 different stories. So, this week and next, we’re going to instead review 12 of the year’s top stories, presented to you in monthly chronology. The year-in-review begins with the “Fresh Developments” which here also serve (mostly) as the “Top Stories” of the year.  Our retrospective begins with one of the year’s biggest stories, which was…

• Also read: The 12 Most Rotten Hollywood Headlines of 2015

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SPIDER-MAN JOINS THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

One of the most confusing things about superhero movies for people not deeply invested in following them is the division between the cinematic adaptations of various Marvel Comics characters. Try explaining explaining why The Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, and The Fantastic Four all reside at separate studios. Well, in FEBRUARY, after a few months of rumors and speculation, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures announced that they had come to a resolution that will bring Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe films produced by Marvel Studios. The new version of Spider-Man will debut in Captain America: Civil War on 5/6/16, because Spider-Man was a big part of Civil War in the comics, and also because it’s Marvel’s next big movie. The web-slinger will then star in a new solo movie for Sony Pictures, which Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige will produce and will be scheduled for July 28, 2017. The new Spider-Man was announced in June as 19-year-old Tom Holland, answering a search for an actor who can credibly portray Peter Parker as being an actual teenager still in high school. With Spider-Man now joining the MCU, that also opens the door for various MCU characters (including those not yet introduced) to appear in Sony’s movies, in addition to Marvel’s. As for the money behind all of this, the arrangement is described as being more like a “lease” than a sale, with no money being exchanged, and Sony benefiting from Marvel’s talent, creative supervision, and input, while Marvel obviously benefits from getting a big chunk of their characters back. So, going forward, you only have to explain to your confused uncle how Marvel’s characters are only split in half instead of thirds.

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JANUARY: MELISSA MCCARTHY HEADLINES NEW ALL-FEMALE GHOSTBUSTERS CREW

Admittedly, we still don’t know whether next summer’s (7/15/16) reboot of Ghostbusters, with an all-female crew of stars, will be Fresh with the critics. But the reveals of the new cast were certainly among the biggest stories of early 2015. It started in January with the news that Melissa McCarthy was in talks for one of the four slots, and she was soon followed by Saturday Night Live alum (and McCarthy’s Bridesmaids costar) Kristen Wiig and two current members of the show’s cast, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. They were joined later in 2015 by various announcements about new roles for original Ghostbusters stars Sigourney Weaver, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts. Rick Moranis apparently decided not to join them, and of course, Harold Ramis died on February 24, 2014.

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MARCH: DISNEY OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCES FROZEN 2

When any movie earns over $1.27 billion, it shouldn’t be particularly surprising when the studio eventually announces plans for some sort of sequel or follow-up, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not really, really big news for all of the fans. Such is exactly what happened for the Frozen franchise in March (just as the short film Frozen Fever was premiering in theaters in front of Cinderella that weekend). The announcement wasn’t particularly lengthy, but it did include a few crucial details, such as the return of directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, and voice actor Josh Gad as the voice of Olaf the comic relief snowman. What was specifically missing in the announcement was the rest of the voice cast, including Kristen Bell (Anna) and Idina Menzel (Elsa), but… their omissions were probably just due to continuing negotiations. For example, Idina Menzel has already talked relatively recently about plans for a Frozen sequel. As for when Frozen 2 can be expected in theaters, fans should probably dress snugly, because the wait in Arendelle might be a few years. Walt Disney Animated Features has already scheduled their next three feature films, which Frozen 2 would ostensibly have to follow. The animal comedy Zootopia is scheduled for March 4, 2016; the Pacific Islands adventure Moana is scheduled for November 23, 2016, and the “Jack and the Beanstalk” adventure Giants is scheduled for March 9, 2018. So, it’s probably going to be at least three years yet before Frozen 2 will be ready for release.

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APRIL: EDDIE REDMAYNE TO STAR IN HARRY POTTER SPINOFF

As Warner Bros prepared to launch its next franchise with J.K. Rowling, one of this year’s critical darlings emerged as the studio’s top choice to star. The spinoff franchise is called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (as you may now know since the teaser trailer has gone live since), and the key character in all of it is the book’s “author,” Newt Scamander.  The actor that Warner Bros landed as Newt Scamander is Eddie Redmayne, who won the Best Actor Academy Award this year for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is seen by Warner Bros as the first of a new franchise of films featuring Newt Scamander in his adventures in the magical New York City of the 1930s. The first movie (11/18/16) will be directed by David Yates, who directed the most recent Harry Potter movies, and also has the Legend of Tarzan coming in 2016 (7/1/16), also with Warner Bros. A trailer for Fantastic Beasts is now already available, and you can watch it here.

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MAY: X-MEN FRANCHISE EXPANDS WITH SPINOFF THE NEW MUTANTS

It’s been known for a while that 20th Century Fox has had plans for spinoffs of their successful X-Men franchise, including solo movies for Deadpool (2/12/16) and Gambit (10/7/16), and talk of an X-Force team movie. In May, the news broke that one of the potentially most promising spinoffs will indeed be the long-rumored title The New Mutants, which 20th Century Fox has hired director Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) to co-write and direct. In a few ways, The New Mutants might be the most appropriate property 20th Century Fox could have chosen, since, like the planned movie, it was itself Marvel’s first (of many that followed) X-Team spinoff series when it launched in 1982. With The New Mutants, the focus was less on students that moonlighted as superheroes, and more on characters who really were students first and foremost but whose mutant natures also frequently forced them into having adventures, teen romances, and journeys of self-discovery. For the most part, the core team of The New Mutants has not really been featured in Fox’s movies previously, which may have been a clue all along that the studio was planning on someday making the movie. Of course, the question that still lingers is exactly what relationship The New Mutants will have to Fox’s plans for an X-Force movie, since in the comics, the original X-Force team actually grew out of The New Mutants (which suggests that the X-Force movie might indeed be a sequel to The New Mutants).

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JUNE: CLINT EASTWOOD DIRECTING CAPTAIN SULLENBERGER BIOPIC

Following the surprise runaway success of American Sniper, Clint Eastwood became an unusually hot director (especially for someone 85 years old), and his decades-old studio home at Warner Bros spent a few months trying to find a suitable deal for Eastwood’s next film. Some of the possibilities had included the Richard Jewell biopic (which remains at 20th Century Fox), and the long-in-development next version of A Star is Born (which Bradley Cooper is now believed to be directing instead). Warner Bros began negotiations in June to acquire the rights to Sully, the true story of pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who successfully landed a passenger airliner on the Hudson River on January 15, 2009, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew on board. The script by Todd Komarnicki (2007’s Perfect Stranger) reportedly delves deeper into “behind the scenes” intrigue that the public was not aware of at the time. Clint Eastwood did eventually sign on to direct Sully, and Tom Hanks later came on to play the good Captain. Sully is now filming, and expected to be one of Warner Bros’ contenders for awards season in late 2016.

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JULY: HAN SOLO TO GET HIS OWN “SOLO” PREQUEL

Admittedly, the second week of July (right before San Diego Comic-Con) had two big movies about characters getting their own solo films, with the first being Ben Affleck’s Batman (which he will also direct). We’re giving the advantage here to the reveal that Star Wars favorite Han Solo will be featured in a prequel that shows one of his early adventures. The Han Solo prequel, showing what the smuggler was doing before he ever met Luke Skywalker, will be directed by the team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, following their successes with such films as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, and The LEGO Movie. This Han Solo movie was written by Lawrence Kasdan, with his son Jon Kasdan. The elder Kasdan’s previous Star Wars screenwriting work includes The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and this year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We don’t know the final title yet, but this Han Solo prequel is scheduled for May 25, 2018. We also don’t know quite yet which young actor will take over from Harrison Ford, but Lucasfilm is certainly being exhaustive in their search. The producers have reportedly met or seen video from over 2,500 young actors, including actors like Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ansel Elgort, and Dave Franco. We expect to hear who will be the next Han Solo sometime in 2016.

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AUGUST: LEONARDO DICAPRIO TO MAKE SIXTH MOVIE WITH MARTIN SCORSESE

Director Martin Scorsese has collaborated with Robert De Niro for eight movies now, but Leonardo DiCaprio, who has been in five Scorsese films, is definitely catching up. In August, it was announced that Scorsese and DiCaprio are reuniting for what will be their sixth film working together. That film is the long-in-development adaptation of the Erik Larson non-fiction book, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. There was a studio auction for the rights to this package, and the winner was Paramount Pictures, which is in need of hot properties (as the studio is currently #5 in market share). Leonardo DiCaprio will play one of the most prolific serial killers in American history, Doctor H.H. Holmes, who is believed to have killed anywhere from 27 to over 200 people during Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1893. Holmes constructed “The World’s Fair Hotel,” which he was secretly using to lure his victims to their deaths, in “a haunt that had a gas chamber, crematorium and a dissecting table where Holmes would murder his victims and strip their skeletons to sell for medical and scientific study.” The Devil in the White City is being adapted by screenwriter Billy Ray (Captain Phillips, The Hunger Games).

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SEPTEMBER: MONSTER MASHUP KING KONG VS GODZILLA IN THE WORKS 

Years of frustration over situations like the split of Marvel Comics characters between Marvel Studios and Fox have conditioned fans not to expect certain “dream movies” to happen, due to rights and licensing issues. In a surprise deal in September, however, the skies did indeed part, and a potentially “awesome” movie mashup is now possible that previously seemed so unlikely that few fans or pundits ever even thought of it. In 2014, Warner Bros released a successful reboot of the Godzilla franchise, which was produced by Legendary Pictures, a company that then moved to Universal Pictures. At Universal, Legendary has been developing another new monster reboot called Kong: Skull Island, which is currently scheduled for release on March 10, 2017. That film will be directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts (The Kings of Summer), and will feature a cast including Tom Hiddleston (Marvel’s Loki), Brie Larson (Trainwreck), Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly, and Tom Wilkinson. Now, here’s where things get surprising. Legendary Pictures has announced that Kong: Skull Island (which may get a new title) is moving to Warner Bros, Legendary’s former studio home. All of this is being done with the expectation that the King Kong reboot will be followed by Godzilla 2 (6/8/18) (which is expected to introduce other Toho giant monsters like perhaps Mothra, Rodan or King Ghidorah). Then, both of those movies would be followed by a giant movie that would basically be a reboot of King Kong vs Godzilla, Toho’s original 1962 movie mashup. All of this is possible in large extent because King Kong itself is in the public domain, and because all of this also falls within the legacy of Toho Studios, which remains the source of Legendary’s license to make these big big budget Godzilla reboot movies.

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OCTOBER: WES ANDERSON GOES TO THE DOGS WITH ANOTHER STOP-MOTION COMEDY

Following the success of The Grand Budapest Hotel (including four Academy Award wins), director Wes Anderson has decided upon his next film, and it will be a return to one of his most unique directorial styles. For his sixth feature film as director in 2009, Wes Anderson made the unusual decision to direct a stop-motion animated movie called Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on a children’s novel by Roald Dahl. We don’t know the title yet for this new stop-motion comedy, except that it will be about a group of dogs. It didn’t take long for us to find out who the dogs will be voiced by, because the news also came the same week, directly from one of those actors. Jeff Goldblum revealed that he will be joined by Bob Balaban (Best in Show), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), and frequent Wes Anderson collaborator Edward Norton as the voices of the four lead dogs. Goldblum also mentioned that the film will be “Japanese-inspired,” but what exactly that means right now is extremely open to interpretation.

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NOVEMBER: EDGAR WRIGHT TO DIRECT DREAMWORKS ANIMATION’S ME AND MY SHADOW

If you’re one of those people who regularly follows film development news and have been doing so for a while, you might recall an animated project from a few years ago called Me and My Shadow. The movie first made the news in 2010 as a DreamWorks Animation project that would combine CG and traditional animation in its telling of “Shadow Stan, an incredibly frustrated shadow that yearns for a more dynamic life but happens to be stuck with Stanley Grubb, the world’s most boring human.” In 2010, Me and My Shadow was expected to be released in March of 2013, but obviously, that never happened. As of last month, Me and My Shadow appears to have been given a new chance at actually being released, and it’s via one of online fandom’s most popular directors. Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), who is currently filming his next project, Baby Driver, is now attached to make his animated feature film debut with Me and My Shadow. It’s not yet known if the film will still be a traditional/CGI hybrid, or how far away the film might be from release (but a good guess is that it will be a while yet).

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DECEMBER: MARVEL LANDS CATE BLANCHETT FOR THOR: RAGNAROK

Hollywood is increasingly divided into three camps: those who have worked with Marvel, those who have worked with WB/DC, and those who just haven’t landed their opportunity yet. (Though there are at least 15 who have done both, they are still a relative minority.) There are still some major players who have not yet signed on for their turn at a superhero role, but that list grows a little smaller with each big new film that casts up. Earlier this month, we were able to cross Cate Blanchett off that list, as she is now in talks to take an unspecified role in Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok (11/3/17). Although Blanchett’s role is being kept secret for now, there are at least three major roles that are both likely to be in Thor: Ragnarok and could be played by her. Let’s address them in reverse order of Blanchett’s probability of playing them. First, there’s Brunnhilde the Valkyrie, who has already been semi-confirmed as appearing in Thor: Ragnarok, but who is the most physical of our three guesses, which is not Cate Blanchett’s most obvious wheelhouse. A second possibility is Amora the Enchantress, and although Cate Blanchett has played a sorceress before (in the Lord of the Rings movies), Marvel might be more likely to cast a young actress for the role (Blanchett will turn 48 in 2017). A third possibility is Hela, the ruler of Hel, the Norse afterworld, who in the comics is the daughter of Loki (though being immortals, this point might be more fixable). Thor: Ragnarok will also feature Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, and will be directed by Taika Waititi (codirector of What We Do in the Shadows).

Indie classics, animated hits, well-reviewed dramas, and blockbuster comedies: Owen Wilson has done it all. This week, he makes a rare foray into action thriller territory opposite Pierce Brosnan in No Escape, so we knew this would be the perfect occasion to take a fond look back at some of the many critical highlights from a very prolific — and impressively varied —filmography. It’s time to pay tribute to the man who brought Marmaduke to life, Total Recall style!

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 10.  The Darjeeling Limited (2007) 69%

Reuniting after the six-year layoff that followed The Royal Tenenbaums, frequent collaborators Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson paired up for 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited, a typically quirky dramedy about three eccentric brothers (played by Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman) who struggle — not always entirely successfully — to reconnect by taking a train ride across India in order to reunite with their mother (Anjelica Huston). While a troubling number of critics felt Darjeeling found Anderson settling into a rut, the majority felt that even if he was treading somewhat familiar ground, he managed to do it with style. Calling it “Arguably Wes Anderson’s most compassionate, mature film,” Nick Rogers of Suite101 credited the film with “[dancing] around disconcerting what-ifs: If they weren’t your brothers and sisters, would you voluntarily befriend them, or do you tolerate quirks and annoyances because blood links you?”

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9.  Inherent Vice (2014) 73%

It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say Wilson’s had an easy time of it with critics lately — his recent duds include Are You Here and She’s Funny That Way — but he’s also made his mark in a few well-reviewed releases, including a brief appearance in The Grand Budapest Hotel and a more substantial supporting role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s star-studded adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice. Here, Wilson appears as Coy Harlingen, a man whose disappearance prompts his wife (Jena Malone) to hire the film’s P.I. protagonist (Joaquin Phoenix) to mount a search. The plot’s a whole lot messier than that — and critics seemed admittedly divided over just how successfully Anderson managed to wrestle it onto the screen — but even if they weren’t quite sure what to make of it, most enjoyed what they saw. “It is no exaggeration to say that this could become the new Big Lebowski,” wrote Helen O’Hara for GQ. “Something that will not just stand up to repeat viewings but positively reward every single rewatch of its twisted, lunatic glory.”

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8.  Cars (2006) 74%

At a comparatively paltry 74 percent on the Tomatometer, 2006’s Cars represented something of a critical setback for PIxar — but while the reviews that greeted this John Lasseter-directed tale of a young racecar (Owen Wilson) and his quest to wrest the Piston Cup from a pair of challengers (Michael Keaton and Richard Petty) weren’t up to the usual Pixar standard, audiences didn’t mind; it grossed over $460 million on its way to spawning a sequel (and a spinoff), and even if it didn’t measure up to Pixar’s previous, it was still good enough to earn praise from scribes like Chris Vognar of the Dallas Morning News, who wrote, “no other outfit can match Pixar’s knack for plucking heartstrings without tearing them off the frets.”

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7.  Wedding Crashers (2005) 75%

Part of the R-rated comedy renaissance of the aughts, Wedding Crashers may not have given Wilson the opportunity to do anything new — here, he appears as John Beckwith, a soft-spoken lech with a heart of gold — but it played squarely to Wilson’s comedic gifts, had a solid Steve Faber/Bob Fisher script, and surrounded Wilson and his co-star, Vince Vaughn, with some terrific supporting talent, including Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams, and Isla Fisher. Though some critics had problems with Crashers‘ uneven tone — and the scads of gratuitous flesh on display in the movie’s opening montage — most found it too much fun to resist. “The likes of the sneakily subversive Wilson and Vaughn deserve better,” wrote MaryAnn Johnson of Flick Filosopher, “but this is darn close to a perfect showcase for what they can do, and how much better they do it together.”

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6.  Shanghai Noon (2000) 80%

Westerns and kung fu movies have enjoyed a close relationship for years, and that rich shared tradition is given a tongue-in-cheek salute with Shanghai Noon, an action-comedy that transcends its goofier elements (Lucy Liu plays the female lead, a character named Princess Pei-Pei) and delivers a well-rounded blend of humor, adventure, and — of course — jaw-dropping stunts. Jackie Chan stars as Chon Wang (say it out loud with a drawl), a Chinese imperial guard who is sent to Nevada to rescue the princess, kidnapped by agents of the villainous Lo Fong (Roger Yuan). Of course, no sooner has he arrived in Nevada than he gets tangled up with Roy O’Bannon (Owen Wilson), a rather inept outlaw who starts out hijacking Wang’s train and ends up becoming an invaluable ally in his quest. For some fans, Shanghai seemed at first like just another Americanized buddy project for Chan, who had already done this sort of thing with Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. Chan and Wilson proved a duo worth watching, though; on their way to a $99 million gross (and an eventual sequel), they earned praise from critics like the New York Times’ A.O. Scott, who wrote, “Shanghai Noon is, in classic western tradition, a celebration of male bonding, unabashedly juvenile, boyishly risqué and disarmingly sweet.”

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5.  The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) 81%

A year after breaking the box-office bank in Meet the Parents, Wilson and his frequent castmate reunited for a far less mainstream excursion into the oddball end of the comedy spectrum: Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. Co-writing the screenplay (about a mind-bendingly eccentric family whose overbearing, insensitive patriarch turns the lives of his children upside down) and appearing amidst an eyebrow-raising ensemble cast that also included Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray, and his brothers Andrew and Luke, Wilson was at his quirkiest and most neurotic — in other words, at his best. While it wasn’t a huge hit at the box office, Tenenbaums fared well with most critics, including Geoff Pevere of the Toronto Star, who called it “An eloquent, eccentric and surprisingly touching tribute to the comic dignity of failure.”

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4.  Meet the Parents (2000) 85%

Ben Stiller is one of the kings of uncomfortable comedy, and few films have taken advantage of his gift for squirm-inducing laughs as brilliantly as Meet the Parents, the 2000 smash hit Jay Roach comedy about male nurse Gaylord “Greg” Focker (Stiller) and his painfully awkward (and/or just plain painful) attempts to make a good first impression on his girlfriend’s parents while dealing with the unexpected presence of her annoyingly perfect ex-boyfriend (Wilson). Featuring plenty of guffaw-worthy physical comedy and splendidly antagonistic chemistry between Stiller and Robert De Niro, Parents grossed over $500 million, spawning a franchise and earning the applause of critics like Time’s Richard Schickel, who chuckled, “Alas, poor Focker. He can’t help himself. And we can’t help ourselves from falling about, equally helpless, at this superbly antic movie.”

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3.  Bottle Rocket (1996) 86%

Wilson cut his cinematic teeth in style with 1996’s Bottle Rocket, an indie darling that not only kicked off his big-screen acting career, but found him co-writing the first of three highly regarded screenplays (followed by Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums) with director Wes Anderson. Although it was a blip on the commercial radar, this cheerful crime comedy about a trio of Texans (Wilson, his brother Luke, and Robert Musgrave) whose rather inept first foray into armed robbery leads them into the path of an older, wiser thief (James Caan) was a favorite of critics like the Washington Post’s Desson Thomson, who called it “A hilarious, inventive and goofy breath of fresh air.”

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2.  Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) 93%

These days, it’s a rare animated film that doesn’t boast a star-studded cast, but most of them don’t attract the sort of award-hoarding talent that Wes Anderson lined up for Fantastic Mr. Fox, is stop-motion adaptation of the Roald Dahl book about a rascally fox (George Clooney) whose devotion to his wife (Streep) is tested by his need to have the last laugh against a trio of bloodthirsty farmers. Rounded out by an eclectic list of co-stars that included Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson, Fox thrilled critics like Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News, who called it “A visual treasure that successfully blends deadpan quirkiness with a wry realism rarely seen in any film, let alone one for children.”

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1.  Midnight in Paris (2011) 93%

Following a fairly dire year that saw him surfacing in Little Fockers and providing the voice of Marmaduke, Wilson enjoyed a huge critical rebound with his starring performance in Midnight in Paris — a late-period smash hit for writer/director Woody Allen, who enjoyed some of the warmest reviews (and the highest grosses) of his career with the fantasy-infused comedic tale of an ennui-addled screenwriter who heads out for a melancholic walk on the streets of Paris and ends up taking much more of a journey than he bargained for. “Woody Allen seemed to have lost his fizz as a filmmaker of late,” observed Jason Best for Movie Talk, “and then he uncorked the sparkling Midnight in Paris, a comic fantasy with all the effervescence of vintage champagne.”

Watch Trailer

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Finally, here’s Tom Hiddleston imagining what it might have sounded like if Owen Wilson had played Loki:

 

This coming January 1 we’ll finally get a chance to see Wes Anderson’s take on Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, which the Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums director has filmed as an amazing stop-motion piece. (92 per cent on the Tomatometer is a lot of love from the critics.)

To mark the film’s Australian release, Rotten Tomatoes and 20th Century Fox are giving 10 readers the chance to win a cool Fantastic Mr. Fox prize pack. Each contains am in-season family pass of four to see the film, a pair of Mr. Fox pyjamas, a Mrs. Fox apron and activity set, a calculator, stationary set and bookmark.

To win, tell us in 25 words or less why you think Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl make a good movie match, and why. Send your answers, along with your mailing address, to: Fantastic Mr. Fox Giveaway.

Entries close Thursday, December 31. Winners will be notified by mail. Please note that the contest is open to Australian residents only.

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Fantastic Mr. Foxis released nationally on January 1.

This week at the movies, we’ve got a global catastrophe (2012, starring John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor) and some rock ‘n’ roll rebellion (Pirate Radio, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Nighy). What do the critics have to say?

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Also opening this week in limited release:

• Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson‘s stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story, is Certified Fresh at 91 percent.

• The Messenger, starring Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster in a drama about a soldier returning to normal life after a stint in Iraq, is at 87 percent.

• Four Seasons Lodge, a doc about a summer resort for Holocaust survivors, is at 78 percent.

• The Good Soldier, a doc about five veterans who reflect on their efforts and the nature of combat, is at 71 percent.

• William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, a profile of the controversial radical civil rights attorney, is at 71 percent.

• The End of Poverty?, a doc about the causes of global inequity, is at 56 percent.
• Uncertainty, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the tale of a young couple whose lives inhabit two alternate realities, is at 50 percent.
• Women in Trouble, starring Carla Gugino and Emmanuelle Chriqui in a multi-stranded comedy about a day in the life of 10 seemingly dissimilar ladies, is at 30 percent.

• Dare, starring Emmy Rossum in a coming-of age tale about an unlikely high school love triangle, is at 29 percent.
• Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon, a documentary about a business competition among inner city teens, is at 29 percent.
• Oh My God, featuring the musings of religious leaders and celebrities like Hugh Jackman and Ringo Starr on the nature of the almighty, is at zero percent.

Wes Anderson, arguably the godfather of the quirky American indie thanks to the likes of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, takes his first steps into the world of stop-motion animation this week with the release of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Based on Roald Dahl‘s classic children’s book, it’s the tale of a wily fox and his adventures thieving food from three of the meanest farmers around; Boggis, Bunce and Bean.

With a stellar voice cast including George Clooney, Bill Murray and Meryl Streep, the film received its world premiere last week at the London Film Festival. On the eve of its global rollout, RT sat down with Anderson to learn more about his passion for Dahl and making the switch to stop-motion.

Continue onto page two as Anderson discusses his use of back-to-basics animation techniques and the challenge of working in animation.

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The animation is really pared back to basics; you’ve embraced the “invisible wind” effect of animators’ fingers on the puppets’ fur.

WA: Yeah, animators always think that’s a bad thing, like it’s bad form. But I think they really got into it on this one. They became comfortable with it because there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Also, the stop motion I’ve loved was always a bit primitive — King Kong and the Brothers Quay — you see these objects that you recognise and you’re very aware it’s handmade. The other thing was that, to me, it was more important that the animation have energy and personality and be funny. I wanted it to be fun and upbeat rather than perfect. This kind of animation is particularly suited to that — we can work more quickly if that’s our goal and we can focus on it and make it our priority. I don’t think we could have made the movie if it had been a Coraline level of precision and smoothness. It would have been a $100m movie rather than the $30m we ended up spending.

Did you enjoy exploring the world of animation and figuring out those particular challenges?

WA: It was great. What’s nice is there’s a chance to invent. Everything there is an opportunity, because you can’t just say, “Oh we’ll use a table that we find.” You have to make one. Everything is manufactured, so everything is a chance to see, is there a way to make that funny, to connect it to a character or to find some sort of motif. Also, because it moves so slowly, every aspect is in slow motion, so things kind-of develop.

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Presumably you don’t have the luxury to go back and make changes after a certain point in that process because of the time involved in animating shots. Do you have to make all of those decisions ahead of time?

WA: You certainly try to. If something is going really wrong during a shot, then we’ll stop. Sometimes you can find a place — you can go back a bit and say, “OK, let’s take it from frame 63,” and they’ll rearrange everything and try and make it match and sometimes there’ll be a little bump when you see it, which is OK, it’s not the end of the world. But to go back three seconds may mean to go back two days, depending on how many puppets they’re moving around. It’s a big deal and definitely something you want to avoid. Also there are other solutions a lot of the time. It could be adding another shot or ending a shot early, or we can try something with sound or add some elements we can composite into the shot. There are always different possibilities.

Fantastic Mr. Fox arrives in UK cinemas on Friday. It has a limited release in the US on 13th November and comes to Australia on 7th January 2010.