Fotos from The Fantastic Mr. Fox

USA Today has the preview gallery, and quotes like this, from Meryl Streep: “When else am I going to be Mrs. George Clooney?”

Wes Anderson: “In animation, the tradition is to make everything smooth and beautiful. That wasn’t my instinct. Using puppets with fur appealed to me. It’s why I wanted to do the film in stop-motion. Usually fur is considered bad news. But I liked how it moves around by itself. It’s funny.”

We talked before about how many eligible animated film submissions the Academy needs before they expand the category from 3 titles to 5. But I forgot the answer. With Coraline, Up, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, 9, Ponyo, A Christmas Carol, and The Princess and the Frog all looking so strong, the 5 Best Feature Animation nominees might be more consistently prestigious than some of the eventual 10 Best Picture contenders.

Opens November 13th. Several more shots after the cut, all clickably enlargeable to better appreciate details of the production design.

More from USA Today:

Anderson, 40, feels he was destined in a way to do a screen adaptation of the 1970 adventure, which recounts the relentless efforts of three nasty British farmers to halt the crafty critter (voiced with daredevil gusto by George Clooney) who brazenly poaches their poultry.

“It was the first book I ever owned,” says the auteur behind The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited. “My brothers and I loved Mr. Fox and all the digging. We were obsessed with underground forts and tunnels.”

…The much-expanded plot has been tweaked to include many elements found in Anderson’s other films, including a dysfunctional clan and a male rivalry. The four Fox children in the book have been whittled down to one handful: Ash (Jason Schwartzman, channeling his Max character from Rushmore), a petulant social misfit who wears a superhero cape and resents his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson, Wes’ brother) for being good at everything.

Schwartzman, a veteran of three Anderson features, proclaims Mr. Fox as “the ultimate.” “It’s funny, but also visually beautiful. Instead of adapting his style of directing to animation, he brought animation to him. He made a Wes film.”