Steven Spielberg has John Williams, Tim Burton has Danny Elfman, but now a new classic director-composer team seems to be developing. Wes Anderson and Alexandre Desplat first worked together on 2009's Fantastic Mr. Fox and then re-teamed for 2012's Moonrise Kingdom, but now the two filmmakers are ready to go for the hat trick.
Buried in an article written by Screen Daily is news that Anderson and Desplat will once again be teaming up, this time for The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson's latest writing and directing effort that is set to go into production next year. The feature is set Europe during the late 1920s (making it Anderson's second period piece after Moonrise Kingdom and first film outside of the United States) and is said to be inspired by the works of Ernst Lubitsch. Ralph Fiennes will be the main star in the film, playing a composed concierge who tries to deal with mounting chaos that erupts at his hotel, but he is surrounded by a brilliant supporting cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Mathieu Amalric, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Saoirse Ronan.
Over the course of his career Desplat has been nominated for an Academy Award four times (The King's Speech, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,The Queen), but he has never taken home the prize. While his work on Moonrise Kingdom has not yet been recognized, his music for Ben Affleck's Argo is nominated for Best Original Score at this year's Golden Globes.
