Viva Mr. Fox

Variety was kind enough this morning to answer one of those little questions that had been slowly gnawing at my busy brain: "Whatever happened to Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'?"

Since I first started hearing about this two years ago but had heard almost nothing recently, I just assumed the project was dead and Anderson had moved on to his India road movie, "The Darjeeling Limited."

Well, sort of. Anderson is well into production on "Darjeeling," but now Fox Animation has also picked up the rights to the "Mr. Fox" script he penned with Noah Baumbach. As to the long break in action, the movie was apparently first acquired by Revolution, which has shut its doors.

Even after the debacle that was "The Life Aquatic," I have nothing but love for Anderson, so two movies in the works can only be a good thing.

"Darjeeling" will apparently come first. Though the IMDB has decided that its plot summary is now priviliged information, if I remember correctly, the flick will star Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody. I seem to remember that the three of them are brothers who set out on a trip across India after the death of their father, but I could be slightly off about that.

And "Fantastic Mr. Fox," of course, is Roald Dahl's story about a fox who uses its wits and cunning to outfox three dimwitted farmers to steal their chickens. Though Anderson toyed with animation in some of the odder stretches of "The Life Aquatic," this will be his first full-fledged foray into the game, and I can't wait to see what becomes of it.

Of course, that wait may still be quite long. Fox has a July 27 date on "The Simpsons" movie, followed by a March 14, 2008, release date on "Horton Hears a Who." The hope is for "Fantastic Mr. Fox" to be Fox Animation's next entry, ready for release prior to the next CG-animated film by "Ice Age" makers Blue Sky.

I'm just happy it's alive at all.


Clooney and the Coens, together again

This news is a couple of days old by now, but it's so good that I had to share it anyway.

It seems like George Clooney is determined to make us all forget that, when he wants to, he can be a very funny guy. Luckily, the Coen brothers haven't forgotten that, and want to bring it back again.

Joel and Ethan will once again serve as co-writers for "Burn After Reading," a spy caper about a CIA agent who loses the disc of the book he is writing. Clooney is obviously fairly obssessed with the CIA, starring already in one awful ("Syriana") and directing one fairly good ("Confessions of a Dangerous Mind") flick about spooks.

And of course Clooney and the Coens have already generated a movie that just gets funnier each time I watch it, and I confess it's probably been at least 15 times now, "O Brother Where Art Thou?". And the highly underrated comedy "Intolerable Cruelty" with Catherine Zeta Jones.

"Burn" is slated to start principal photography in August to mid-September, after Clooney completes directing his 1920s football film "Leatherheads," in which he is expected to star with Renee Zellweger.

As for the Coens, they've backburnered "Suburbicon" as well as the period comedy "Hail Caesar," about a '20s Shakespeare troupe, in which Clooney was planning to play a hammy actor with a pencil mustache. Their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men," starring Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem, is slated for release next year by Paramount Vantage (I just hope they have better luck with McCarthy than Billy Bob did with the dreadful "All the Pretty Horses.")

In the meantime, though, I can only say welcome back, old friends.