The Fantastic Mr. Fox!

Updated on October 24, 2008 By Ken Begg 5 Comments

The Roald Dahl book Fantastic Mr. Fox has always been one of my favorite books.  Yeah, it’s a (more than a) bit socialist in outlook, but hey, I read it a hundred times and I turned out OK. 

Anyhoo, Wes Anderson is supposedly working on an animated version, with voices from George Clooney, Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray.  However, aside from Dahl’s tremendous (and typically mean-spirited prose), I also fell in love with the Sidney Paget-esque neo-Victorian illustrations provided by Donald Chaffin in the the original hardcover edition.  The book has been reprinted since, however, with a series of gawdawful new illustrations.

So will Wes Anderson’s Mr. Fox look like this?

Or this…

Or this?
 

Ah, that’s the stuff.

 

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  • Brandi

    Most likely it’ll be CGI, for good or for bad.

  • Brandi

    Sorry about the double post there– also a correction: if Wikipedia is to be believed, it will be good old-fashioned stop motion with the help of Henry “Nightmare Before Christmas” Selick!

  • BeckoningChasm

    That’s not necessarily good news, Brandi. Have you seen “James and the Giant Peach”? Another Roald Dahl book filmed by Henry Selick. It (IMHO) has none of the imagination or, well, magic of “Nightmare.” Beautiful imagery but just plods from scene to scene with no sense of momentum. It’s been years since I’ve seen it and I have no desire to see it again.

    Henry needs Tim Burton, I think.

  • BeckoningChasm

    Argh, sorry as well for the double post. I was told that the server timed out, and to try again later; I did and…well…(looks at shoes guiltily)

  • Sandra

    I never read the book, but if its a favorite of yours, don’t get your hopes up. Hollywood rarely does justice to children’s books. Remember Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? They just jettisoned pretty much the whole plot, and had all the magical stuff be just a story the father was telling the kids! Or maybe you will get lucky. The British have more respect for the original books. Papaerhouse was virtually page for page of its book, which was called Marianne Dreams. (I beleive there was a US edition call (shudder) The Magic Pencil.