Over the course of his 20-year career, Wes Anderson has bloomed from indie darling to mainstream luminary. His unique stamp on filmmaking often veers toward the eccentric and has drawn in its fair share of criticism, but he’s largely hailed as a cinematic visionary. He’s perhaps best known for dramedies like The Royal Tennenbaums (2001), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), but in recent years has begun dabbling with animated projects.

In 2009, he released Fantastic Mr. Fox, a critically praised stop-motion comedy based on Roald Dahl’s 1970 children’s novel of the same name. Then, in 2016, he lent his voice to Garth Jenning’s newly-debuted animated flick Sing. While it’s been known for quite some time that Anderson’s next feature would be a return to stop-motion, official details have now emerged about the film.

Anderson has now released a video formally announcing the movie, titled Isle of Dogs. It’s being filmed in London, and is presumably a play on the similarly named Isle of Dogs in the city’s East End. As previously revealed, it will, of course, be a story about dogs. Anderson also shared its star-studded voice cast. Set to appear are Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johannson, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, Kunichi Nomura, Harvey Keitel, Akira Ito, Akira Takayama, Koyu Rankin, Yoko Ono, Courtney B. Vance, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Bob Balaban, Liev Schreiber, and Edward Norton, the last of whom also makes a cameo in the video announcement.

Wes Anderson standing in front of the model of the Grand Budapest Hotel

A lucky fan may also get the chance to nab a role in the project. In partnership with Crowdrise and The Film Foundation, an organization dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the planet’s shared movie heritage, Anderson will be giving away an invitation to visit the team on set and the opportunity to voice “probably another dog.” More details on the contest are available on the Crowdrise website.

Given the success of Fantastic Mr. Fox, it will be exciting to see what Anderson does with Isle of Dogs. The movie marked a new direction for the filmmaker but kept his quirky, offbeat style in tact. It’s also refreshing to see him still pushing limits within his already established career. His experience on Fantastic gave him solid starting ground for another stop-motion endeavor, which should give way to even more creative exploration - and such a megawatt cast near-guarantees great voice acting.

A release date has not yet been announced for Isle of Dogs.

Source: CØSMO DiNN