Wes Anderson's 'Isle Of Dogs' Trailer and Poster Arrive

Concrete information on Wes Anderon's return to stop-motion animation has, thus far, been thin on the ground. We knew the title- Isle Of Dogs- knew that it was somehow "a Japanese story", and knew that actors such as Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton and (of course) Bill Murray would fill out the voice cast.

Now the trailer has arrived, and we have a much better idea of what to expect. The trailer introduces a future Japan where the city of Megasaki has been ravaged by "Dog Flu". This leads to an exile of the city's canines, who are quarantined on the titular Isle of Dogs. A 12-year old boy comes to the island on a mission to rescue his beloved pooch, and ends up teaming up with a rag-tag gang of dogs to try and find him.

The new film is obviously visually similar to Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox, with a similar scrappy, lo-fi look to the models. It is also clear from the trailer that just as with Mr Fox, many of the director's trademarks and stylistic flourishes have been transported over from his live-action films. However, while the previous film was at least nominally a family movie, it seems like this is more targeted at an adult, arthouse crowd. This is probably reflected in the fact that this is being released by Fox Searchlight rather than the more mainstream 20th Century Fox.

The Japanese element is also heavily featured in the trailer. The film is said to be heavily influenced by Japanese cinema, and it seems that Japanese actors have largely been cast for the human roles. This also adds another connection to Fantastic Mr Fox, as in that film British actors were cast as the humans, while the animals all have American accents (despite the story being presumably set in England).

Isle Of Dogs will arrive on March 23, 2018 in the US, with the UK release following on March 30.  A new poster has also been released- check it out below.