Wes Anderson Wants To Make A Horror Movie
We all know what a Wes Anderson movie is. The co-writer/director behind Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Royal Tenenbaums has a distinct voice and style. Anderson is sometimes criticized for never leaving his wheelhouse, but, according to the director, he might venture far outside of his comfort zone with a horror movie.
Learn more after the jump.
After the success of The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson is at the top of his game. He's at a point in his career where he can take great risks. In a conversation at the Rome Film Festival with author Donna Tartt, Anderson revealed he may take his most promising risk yet by making a horror film (via Filmmaker Magazine):
I have thought of doing a horror movie, and I have thought of doing a Christmas movie. Horror is an area where if a filmmaker really wants to use all the tricks, the techniques to affect your emotions.... With the kind of movies I do, you're supposed to say is this part supposed to be funny, or is this part supposed to be sad? Well, you say, I don't know. I'm not sure. This is the way we wanted it. When you make a horror or a thriller, you say you're supposed to be scared here. You're supposed to be relieved here. Here we're explaining something so you know the next part so you'll be more scared then. I like the idea of the requirements and the obligations of working in a genre like that. I've done some scenes like that, but I'd like to do a scary movie.
Making a horror movie requires a real awareness of timing and audience's expectations. Tonally, Anderson could mash together different tones, as he's done in the past, but seeing a straight-up horror movie from the director sounds more appealing. His sensibilities would certainly suit a Christmas movie, though, which, as he said, he's also interested in making.
The good thing with a Christmas movie — if you make a great Christmas song or movie or book, as Dickens showed us, you can make a huge fortune, because they come back every year. As long as you have a piece of the action, then it's a perennial.
Anderson is currently working on a stop-motion film about dogs, featuring the voices of Edward Norton, Bryan Cranston, Bob Balaban, and Jeff Goldblum. He doesn't have anything lined up after that project, so maybe we'll actually see a horror or christmas movie from him in the next few years.
Whatever kind of horror movie Anderson makes, it probably won't resemble The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders.