Wild times with MR. FOX

October 12th, 2009 at 03:16pm Will Pfeifer

All was not smooth sailing on the set of Wes Anderson’s new movie, THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX –  and that’s putting it mildly.

According to an article in the L.A. Times by Chris Lee, Anderson spent most of the shooting time of the animated film in Paris while the film was actually, well, filmed, across the water in London. What’s worse, the crew says Anderson’s lack of knowledge about the process of stop-motion animation made things even more difficult…

“Honestly? Yeah. He has made our lives miserable,” the film’s director of animation, Mark Gustafson, said during a break in shooting. He gave a weary chuckle. “I probably shouldn’t say that.”

Lee’s article is fascinating precisely because people seem to be saying a lot of things they “probably shouldn’t say.” Read the whole thing here.

(All this trouble has nothing to do with the quality of the movie, of course. Two of the most troubled sets in the history of moviemaking resulted in two all-time classics: THE GODFATHER and JAWS.

Entry Filed under: Animation, directors