Wes Anderson’s ‘French Dispatch’ Moves to October, Right in the Heart of Oscar Season

Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” is having its theatrical release delayed from July 24 to October 16. The move shifts Anderson’s latest into the thick of awards season. The majority of Anderson’s recent releases have all been in the spring or summer, including “Isle of Dogs,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” and “Moonrise Kingdom.” The original July 24 release date led many in the film industry to believe Searchlight would world premiere “The French Dispatch” at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, but that event has been postponed until future dates that still haven’t been determined.

“The French Dispatch” is being billed as Anderson’s “love letter to journalists.” The comedy-drama is set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th Century French city. The newspaper’s editors gather to pick three stories from their publication to republish in tribute of their late editor in chief. Anderson brings the three news stories to life in what is his first anthology movie. The ensemble cast includes Bill Murray, Timothee Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Elisabeth Moss, Tilda Swinton, Lea Seydoux, Owen Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Tony Revolori, and more.

Variety reported in January “The French Dispatch” carries a $25 million production budget, which puts it at the same cost of “Grand Budapest Hotel.” The $25 million budget makes it one of Anderson’s priciest live-action films. The project boasts regular Anderson collaborators like cinematographer Robert Yeoman, composer Alexandre Desplat, and editor Andrew Weisblum. Anderson’s Oscar-winning “Grand Budapest” production designer Adam Stockhausen is also on board, and he revealed last month the crew took over a felt factor in France and turned it into a movie studio for the production.

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“Outside of town, we found this derelict felt factory, which sounds absurdly appropriate in retrospect but at the time, it seemed perfectly normal like, ‘Yeah! Felt factory!’” Stockhausen said in a statement. “So we took this place over and turned the entire thing DIY style into a movie studio, and we took over the different rooms of it and we made one of them a prop storage and another one became a carpentry mill and another one became the sculpture room, and another one became set dressing, and the three biggest ones became our stages.”

“The French Dispatch” will open in theaters October 16.

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