This week marks five years since The French Dispatch opened in limited theaters on October 22, 2021. To celebrate, we dug into the production notes to find eight things fans may have missed about Wes Anderson’s anthology comedy drama.
It started as a musical
In August 2018, reports said Wes Anderson would write and direct an untitled musical film set in France after World War II. Within months, producer Jeremy Dawson confirmed the film was not a musical. The finished project instead follows three different storylines as the French news bureau of the fictional Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun publishes its final issue.
Chalamet’s role was written with him in mind
Timothée Chalamet’s role was written with him in mind. He joined an expansive ensemble that included Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Jeffrey Wright, and Léa Seydoux, with Steven Rales producing under his Indian Paintbrush banner and Fox Searchlight Pictures distributing.
Kate Winslet had to exit
Initially, Kate Winslet was also part of the cast. She had to exit the project to prepare for her next role in Ammonite. Principal photography began in November 2018 in Angoulême, southwestern France, and wrapped in March 2019.
Murray and Ronan shot their scenes in two days
Bill Murray and Saoirse Ronan, who had small roles, recorded their scenes in two days. Cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman shot on 35 mm film using Kodak Vision3 200T 5213 for the color sequences and Eastman Double-X 5222 for the black-and-white sequences.
Golf carts replaced camera cars
Anderson preferred classic methods while shooting. The crew used scaffolding and hauled equipment on ropes, rather than a Technocrane, and golf carts for transporting cameras, rather than camera cars. Arricam Studio and Lite cameras were provided by a studio in Paris.
Most scenes used the Academy ratio
Most scenes were framed in 1.37:1 format, also known as Academy ratio, which Anderson had used in The Grand Budapest Hotel and which was used for many of the French films that inspired The French Dispatch. Occasional scenes were shot in anamorphic format, which Yeoman said was ‘mainly to make a bold dramatic statement’.
The animation was local-only
As a nod to Angoulême’s comic heritage, the animated segments were directed by Gwenn Germain, who had previously worked on Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, and done entirely by local illustrators. The team comprised a maximum of 15 people and took about seven months to complete.
It set a pandemic box office record
In its limited opening weekend, the film grossed $1.3 million from 52 theaters, for a per-venue average of $25,000. That was the best per-venue performance for a theatrically released film up to that point of the COVID-19 pandemic. It eventually grossed $46.3 million worldwide.
Which of these details caught you off guard? Tell us your favourite The French Dispatch fact in the comments.
Facts from Wikipedia: The French Dispatch, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Film images from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.