After taking his longest break between features yet, Wes Anderson is finally back this spring, following up his hit The Grand Budapest Hotel, which pulled in nearly $175 million at the box office. Returning to the world of stop-motion animation after Fantastic Mr. Fox, but this time going into PG-13 territory–for “thematic elements” (ah, those precarious, themes) and “violent images”–Isle of Dogs will premiere at Berlinale in under 10 days and be released about a month after that.
Featuring the voices of–take a breath–Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Kunicki Nomura, Akira Takayama, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Akira Ito, Scarlett Johansson, Harvey Keitel, F. Murray Abraham, Yoko Ono, Tilda Swinton, Ken Watanabe, Mari Katsuki, Fisher Stevens, Nijiro Murakami, Liev Schreiber, and Courtney B. Vance, the first clip has now arrived.
Introducing our main band of doggies, check out the clip below, along with the new Berlinale description, photos, and a motion poster.
Isle of Dogs tells the story of Atari Kobayashi, 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When, by Executive Decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage-dump called Trash Island, Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior Turbo Prop and flies across the river in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the assistance of a pack of newly-found mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire prefecture.
After Fantastic Mr. Fox, this new work marks Wes Anderson’s second animation film. Once again, the director has created a meticulously detailed universe that functions according to its own unique realities and laws. But even when wicked villains appear and brutally hunt down the four-legged friends, the film remains essentially a fable. Miraculously, we are able to understand the animals, whilst almost everything the humans say is translated for us. Atari and his quirky canine companions King, Duke, Rex, Boss and Chief confront us with those most quintessential of questions that concern us all, namely: ‘Who are we? And who do we want to be?’
Wes Anderson’s #IsleofDogs premieres on February 15 at #Berlinale. It’s one of our most-anticipated films of the year: https://t.co/VCtlSFO1Lr pic.twitter.com/tBXXet2u7a
— The Film Stage ? (@TheFilmStage) February 6, 2018
Isle of Dogs opens on March 23.