We haven’t reported a lot on Wes Anderson’s animated adaptation of The Fantastic Mr. Fox because there hasn’t been a lot of news to report. It’s a lot easier to contain news about a film made on stop-motion stands and in the voice recording studio, and Anderson’s team hasn’t let much leak out.
But the film test screened this week (to a generally positive reception) and reports give us some more info. The big news is that Cate Blanchett seems to have been replaced by Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox, opposite George Clooney as Mr. Fox. (One report I read was written by someone who actually said “I don’t like Meryl Streep” so I don’t trust anything they have to say beyond basic facts.)
Also interesting are other evident cast members. We’ve got the three farmers: Bill Murray (Badger), Jason Schwartzman (Ash), and Owen Wilson (Coach Skip). Then there are Michael Gambon (Franklin Bean), Willem Dafoe (Rat), Jarvis Cocker, the former singer for Pulp (Petey) and and Adrien Brody (Rickity).
Gambon, Brody and Dafoe are all new and ‘confirmed’ info, but until we have a few other reports I wouldn’t take those as guaranteed. Folks also heard Wes Anderson voicing a role, but that may have just been a temp track; the cut of the film screened for testing wasn’t complete.
All this comes from The Playlist‘s collation of their own reporting with info from The Rushmore Academy.