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One of my personal favorite writers and film directors, Wes Anderson, who directed Rushmore and Bottle Rocket and wrote The Royal Tenenbaums, has reinterpreted the Roald Dahl classic (along with Noah Baumbach), the Fantastic Mr. Fox, into a stop motion animated movie set to be released in the US on November 13th, 2009. There is to be a premiere in London in October.

Here's the first released trailer from the 20th Century Fox movie which has just been completed And later in this post are over 30 amazing stills from the movie.

The voice cast includes Willem Dafoe, Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Anjelica Huston, Brian Cox, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and Bill Murray, who is perfect as a lovable badger in a suit. Even Chef Mario Batali voices the Rabbit.

A synopsis of the film from IMDB:
"Boggis and Bunce and Bean, One short, one fat, one lean. These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean."

Mr. Fox, Mrs. Fox, and all their fox babies live under a hill under a tree, along with Badger, Rabbit, Weasel, and all of their families. To make ends meet, every night, Mr. Fox steals a meal from one of the three crooked farmers--Boggis, a chicken farmer, Bunce, who has a little bit of everything but only eats duck liver, and Bean, who farms turkeys and apples and subsists solely on apple cider. With his keen sense of smell, and the farmers' distinctive diets, Mr. Fox has no problem evading them.

After so much treatment, the greedy farmers band together to end Mr. Fox. They ambush him at the base of his hole in the hill, and while Mr. Fox survives, his tail does not. Thus begins an obsession on the part of the farmers. They first try to dig the foxes out, but they are outdug by eight sets of paws. Then, they move to starving them out. This is unfortunate, as no other creatures living under the hill (though now more of a valley; a bulldozer was involved at one point) can get out, either. Mr. Fox is not a very popular figure until he chances across the idea of digging under the farmhouses...

I've got a bunch a wonderful brand spankin new stills for you:

All images are © 2009 20th Century Fox and courtesy of The Rushmore Academy

The official site has a great gallery that includes a lot of behind the scene images like these:

so, be sure to check that out here.

A foxtail necktie handed out at Comic-Con 2009 to promote The Fantastic Mr. Fox.:

For those of you with children, a new version of the classic book has been released with images from the movie. You can pre-order it now.

Or, if you prefer, you can choose from classic editions of Fantastic Mr. Fox books and audio tapes here.

the press release:
Mobility and living on the move are very important themes of our fast-moving age. People want to be mobile but at the same time, have a strong desire for a lasting home and their own personal four walls. In the camper market there is strong demand for new design and personalized, tailor-made solutions. Individualist tourists want a caravan that is made just for them.

The solution to the problem is offered by the “Mehrzeller” – the multicellular caravan. Using the online Configurator, every user sets up a design that is unique, their own layout that they can identify with.

The configuration is generated by a computer using the customer’s inputs, and then the final design is done by parameters from the architects to yield an attractive and practicable result. The caravans are produced using the principles of “mass customization”: this allows both the individual wishes of the customer to be accommodated while producing the caravan with series methods.

Screen grabs of their online configurator (sorry folks, not available in english):

The Mehrzeller thus introduces a new generation of mobile living. The project, which began as a degree project in Architecture at the Technical University of Graz, can be realized thanks to the support of many respected companies such as Design Composite, Alko, Truma, Dometic, Waeco, Alphatronics, Alugas, Jokon, Fiamma, Cleversolar, Simona, Moralt, Reimo, BMW and others.
--end of press release

Here's a collection of high res images of the prototype caravan, exterior and interior.