Entertainment

The feature-length ''toon from director Wes Anderson Fantastic Mr. Fox kicked off the London Film Festival two weeks ago and Friday night, it made its way stateside to christen the week long AFI Film Fest, hosted by the American Film Institute each autumn in Hollywood.

Compared to the London event, which was attended by Fox star George Clooney, the U.S. premiere was considerably lower key, which is what happens when you''re Clooney-free.

Nevertheless, other principals came to support Anderson''s film, including Lucy Dahl, the daughter of actress Patricia Neal and the late author Roald Dahl, who wrote the beloved Fox novel.

"(Wes) really cared," Lucy Dahl said. "And he cared so much that he went to Gypsy House, where we grew up, and he lived there while he wrote the scripts. And he walked in the countryside and he actually wore my father''s clothes. (Laughs.) He really wanted to get the whole aspect of it and it was beautifully done."

Yeah, yeah, yeah -- but how about some dish on Clooney? Anderson instead served up "dishes."

"So, we recorded on this farm on Connecticut, with all the actors together, and it was a bit like camp," the director recalled. "And the thing that struck me -- at that point I was just getting to know George. And he, in a situation like that, you have what turns out to be a lot of guys together, guests in someone''s house, eating large meals, and no one thinking to just wash a dish. Except George, who just started going into the kitchen and doing the dishes and everybody else followed him in."

While Clooney is an Anderson newcomer, Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman have long associations with the director, dating back to the director''s acclaimed dramatic comedy Rushmore (1998).

Murray admitted that he and Anderson had different takes on Murray''s Fox character, a booze-swilling badger.

"He''s an attorney," Murray explained. "I first tried a Wisconsin accent. It didn''t go over so well. I thought it was excellent . . . But he a counsellor who gives advice that''s never listened to. So, it''s kind of an interesting character to play."

Dahl''s story, about a sly fox at odds with farmers, is one for the ages, and one for all ages, as per Schwartzman. "It''s about just being who you are, being free, not being embarrassed, that every one of us is something different, something special, and we should all just embrace it."

Fantastic Mr. Fox has already begun its regular theatrical run in the United Kingdom and Portugal.

It opens in limited release stateside 13 November.

Other release dates:

Singapore 19 November 2009
Romania 20 November 2009
USA 25 November 2009 (wide release)
Brazil 4 December 2009
France 23 December 2009
Sweden 25 December 2009
Australia 7 January 2010
Taiwan 23 January 2010
Russia 28 January 2010
Estonia 5 February 2010
Norway 5 February 2010
Belgium 17 February 2010
Netherlands 18 February 2010
Argentina 4 March 2010
Denmark 19 March 2010
Finland 2 April 2010
Italy 2 April 2010
Germany 13 May 2010