Wes Anderson: Phoenician Scheme director reveals objects from first movie were sold without permission

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Wes Anderson revealed that multiple objects from his first film have been sold without his permission.

Anderson is best-known for his eccentric and highly stylised films, including The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr Fox, and Isle of Dogs.

He is at the Cannes Film Festival this week to premiere his latest project The Phoenician Scheme, which stars Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson.

Anderson has now reflected on his earlier films and shared a disconcerting fact about his debut Bottle Rocket, the 1996 comedy heist film co-directed by and starring Owen Wilson.

“The first film I made, everything went to the studio, to their storage. And I went and I visited the storage to find some objects [from set], and I saw that things either weren’t properly stored or protected, or they’d been sold.”

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Anderson said that some of the sold objects had been personally made by him with his own hands.

Anderson stated: “I was very offended that this was how this had been handled, and I just started archiving things myself.”

Initially, he started taking objects from his sets to ensure they were kept safely in his possession. He later added a clause to his contracts that he would be the one who looks after the costumes and be responsible for the objects on set.

Wes Anderson exhibition (Searchlight Pictures)

However, this didn’t always go down well with the studio heads. While filming his 2004 filmThe Life Aquatic (starring Bill Murray and Cate Blanchett), somebody came from the studio to the filming location in Italy to stop him keeping the objects for himself.

Anderson said: “I took most of the objects in that movie that they took back and that were lost or sold.”

There is currently a career retrospective of Wes Anderson’s work at the Cinémathèque Française, in Paris. The exhibit is running until 19 July 2025.

He said: “In doing the process of preparing this exhibition, we had to track down some things that they gave away, or they sold or they traded.”

He added that: “The process of putting together the exhibition was totally fine because it wasn’t me. I kept that stuff and provided it, but a group of other people, including a family friend who’s worked on other exhibitions for us, Abe Rogers, were really in charge.”

The Phoenician Scheme will be released in UK cinemas on 23 May.

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