‘The Phoenician Scheme’ By Wes Anderson.

Newly crowned Oscar winner Wes Anderson has set his next project, a father-daughter espionage tale, with the working title “The Phoenician Scheme”. Michael Cera will star alongside Anderson’s frequent collaborators - Bill Murray and Benicio del Toro. Roman Coppola and Anderson wrote the script. Indian Paintbrush will produce the pic.

The plot details for the film are under wraps but some reports revealed it as “a tightly-knit plot revolving around three key characters, a story of a family and a family business, specifically capturing a father-daughter relationship in a dark espionage tale”.

As with all of Andersons’s films, he has managed to get an enormous ensemble of talent for his new film. Michael Cera and Benicio del Toro were the first actors rumored to be cast of Anderson’s next film in May 2023. Bill Murray was announced as part of the cast in January 2024. between March and April 2024, Mia Threapleton had joined the cast as the female lead, Riz Ahmed also joined later. The rest of the cast was announced on June 6, 2024, including Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarrlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Tonio Arango, Aysha Samuel, Sabine Hollweck, Imke Buchel, Imad Mardnli, Jamie Ferkic and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Anderson first talked about the film in June 2023 while promoting “Asteroid City”, calling it a “three-hander” adventure and saying he and Coppola had already written the script before the 2023 WGA strikes began. He confirmed del Toro’s involvement saying that the film would feature him in every shot. In September, Anderson confirmed Cera as a newcomer in his universe.

Principal photography began on March 12, 2024 in Germany and wrapped on June 3 of the same year. It was also reported that Anderson’s ‘Phoenician Scheme’ was awarded the lion’s share of the more than 20M Euros paid out by the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) to 25 film projects in the first four months of 2024. The production received a grant of over 10.4M Euros from the DFFF fund, which has been shooting on sound stages at the studios near Potsdam.

Roman Coppola (son of Francis Ford Coppola) is the co-writer on the project, This isn’t the first time Coppola and Anderson have worked together, he has co-wrote “The Darjeeling Limited”, “Moonrise Kingdom” and “The Life Aquatic”. the script or ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ is said to have been written around the time of those films. Anderson had stated that he dusted the script up and was finally ready to make it.

Anderson is coming off his first Oscar win for his Netflix short “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”, based on the story by Roald Dahl. His last feature was 2023’s “Asteroid City” starring Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston and more.

Bruno Delbonnel, who was DP on few of Coen brother’s films as well as on “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, has been chosen as the cinematographer for the Phoenician Scheme.

We can expect the film to premier at summer film festivals, before being released in early 2025.