Moonrise Kingdom is currently doing quite well both critically and commercially (a $53k per-screen take), and in an effort to further expand upon the fairy-tale-in-tone world he has built director Wes Anderson will release “a special animated short film designed to serve as a companion piece” sometime this week.
“[The character of Suzy has] a suitcase full of these young adult fantasy type novels,” Anderson explained. “Sort of sci-fi/fantasy books. We had to invent them and give a little glimpse of each one. Different artists, most of whom very close to the filmmakers, were doing these. In fact, we have now animated them, each little passage, each in the style of the cover of the book. We’ve made a little short film that’s hosted by Bob Balaban, the narrator in our movie. That will come out next week on the internet. It’ll be a little companion piece to the movie.”
Any Anderson fans among you will be aware that this isn’t exactly a new tactic for the director – he released the short film HOTEL CHEVALIER starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman online in advance of THE DARJEELING LIMITED‘s release and then included it on the DVD.
We’ll be sure to let you know as soon as this new short is available.