Wes Anderson must be feeling pretty vindicated these days. After a couple of films more cooly received by critics, in "The Life Aquatic" and "The Darjeeling Limited," and a charming animated film that unfortunately flopped at the box office, Anderson needed to come back strong, and fortunately, that's exactly what he did with this year's "Moonrise Kingdom," still one of the year's most widely liked films, and the idiosyncratic director's most successful picture since "The Royal Tenenbaums."
And with the new film adding some new players to the Anderson rep company, in the shape of Ed Norton, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand, A-listers are, more than ever, queueing up to work with the filmmaker, with the world's biggest movie star, Johnny Depp, signing on to Anderson's next film, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," and a host of other names on his wish list. One of whom has just confirmed that he's officially on board, as Jude Law, who was one of the actors rumored a while back, has just told MTV that he'll be taking a role in the film.
The star told the site on the press rounds for "Anna Karenina" (in which he gives one of the best performances among an excellent ensemble cast) that the director "sent me this wonderful script. I think we start work on that in January… It will be the usual team [of actors]. I have heard Johnny Depp is indeed playing a key role in it. I think my role is fleeting, but I'm very excited to be a part of that Wes Anderson family."
What's more, it seems that Law is fulfilling a long-held dream, saying that "I've been a huge fan of Wes. I pestered him with emails for years, saying 'I want to live in one of your films and I'd like to be in one of your films.'" Happily, it looks like Anderson relented, and we think Law will fit into Wes-world nicely. As for the rest of the cast members, Anderson said a while back that the film will reunite him with regular collaborator Owen Wilson, while Law's comment about the 'usual team' suggests that the rumored involvement of Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe and Adrien Brody, as well as newer ensemble members Edward Norton and Jeff Goldblum, may well come to pass. There's no word as yet on 86-year-old veteran Angela Lansbury, who was said to be being pursued for a role as well.
Details are still thin on the ground, other than knowing that one character is a medium (a psychic, rather than their shirt size), and that the film will presumably be set at least in part in the Hungarian capital of the title. But we can't be the only ones to assume from the name that the film might be in some way Anderson's homage to the 1932 all-star Oscar-winning drama "Grand Hotel" (watch the trailer below)? With filming getting underway as soon as January, we could find out by the end of 2013. Set decorators of Hungary, your time has come.