Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom is by far one of my favourite films of the year, debuting at Cannes to brilliant early reviews, and going on to break records with its US release over the spring/summer.

The acclaimed writer-director has been lining up his next film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, in recent months, and now Movies.com confirm the latest casting in the form of Jason Schwarztman:

“I’m going to be in it. Yes, I’m going to be in it. I’m playing Cousin Ben (referring to his Moonrise Kingdom character). No, I’m just kidding — wouldn’t that be crazy? No, but I’m excited about it. I’m very excited about it. It’s a beautiful movie.”

Anderson has said previously that he wrote the film with an old friend, and that the film is European in flavour, but little is known beyond those details.

A handful of people have come on board and exited the project since initial details first emerged, but as things currently stand, the cast is set to include Anderson favourites, Bill Murray and Owen Wilson, alongside newcomers Ralph Fiennes and Jude Law, and with Schwartzman now joining the cast, things are looking better than ever.

Schwartzman is of course no stranger to Anderson’s work, joining his cadre as the young lead, Max Fischer, in Rushmore. He returned to work with the director as the youngest of the three brothers in The Darjeeling Limited, voiced Ash Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox, and most recently starred as Cousin Ben in this summer’s Moonrise Kingdom.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is currently slated for a Boxing Day 2014 release in the US, but naturally that may change in the coming months/years as the project develops. Production is set to get underway soon, and with any luck, we’ll have some more brilliant new casting details to bring you in the near future.

In the meantime, Moonrise Kingdom will be released on DVD/Blu-ray in the US this Tuesday, 16th October, and has been available on DVD/Blu-ray in the UK since 1st October. If you missed it in theatres, I can’t recommend enough how much you should buy a copy as soon as possible; it really is one of the best films of the year.

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