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kottke.org posts about Asteroid City

The Missing Bill Murray Scene From Asteroid City

Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in a fake promo for Asteroid City

Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in a fake promo for Asteroid City

So, ever since I’d heard that Bill Murray had to drop out of filming Asteroid City, I’ve wondered which role he’d meant to play. After seeing the movie, I thought it was either the grandfather (played by Tom Hanks) or the hotel manager (Steve Carell) and it was Carell’s role:

Murray was originally cast as a motel manager in the desert town where the movie is set, in 1955. “Normally, I don’t think it’s such a nice idea to tell everyone the person who didn’t end up in the movie,” Anderson said recently. “But Bill got covid in Ireland, and it was four days before he was supposed to work.” Murray was in Ireland for a family trip (“And usually golf has something to do with it,” Anderson said), en route to Spain, where “Asteroid City” was shooting. With Murray in quarantine, Anderson scrambled to recast the part. “The movie was a jigsaw puzzle of actors’ schedules, so we couldn’t wait,” he recalled. “We were extremely lucky that Steve Carell said yes โ€” and was perfect in the part.”

Murray showed up to the set anyway after he recovered and he and Anderson filmed tongue-so-firmly-in-cheek-I-don’t-even-have-the-right-metaphor-for-it promo for the film that perfectly complements the film’s meta structure.

Then, the day after the movie wrapped, Anderson and Murray concocted an idea: in a metatheatrical curlicue, Murray would play a character who was cut from the film. Anderson corralled Schwartzman, who plays a war photographer (and the actor playing the war photographer), and they shot a short scene in the style of a retro promotional trailer for a Hollywood film, in which a director or a studio executive would give a stilted pitch for an exciting new picture. Think of the Paramount head Robert Evans boosting “Love Story” and “The Godfather,” or Cecil B. DeMille hyping his 1934 production of “Cleopatra.” Anderson recalled, “We made this very peculiar thing that is just a spontaneous creation before the set was going to be struck down. It was the last thing we did. And then we put all our things in the golf cart and drove off into the sunset.”

[I know, this is a lot of Asteroid City stuff โ€” maybe you don’t care about this quite so much? He gets like this about stuff he likes. It’s ok, he’ll grow tired of it in a few days and the site will go back to being about *checks notes* everything else in this whole wide world. -ed]


Behind the Scenes of Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City

The other day I posted about how contemporary filmmakers, Wes Anderson in particular, use miniatures in their films. The model/prop maker featured, Simon Weisse, has worked with Anderson on several films, including his latest, Asteroid City. Weisse has been posting behind-the-scenes shots of his studio’s work on Asteroid City to his under-followed Instagram account and I thought a separate post highlighting some of those props and miniatures would be fun.

a model train in the desert

a vending machine that dispenses martinis

three asteroids of different sizes in cages

a model of an asteroid impact crater next to two model makers

a model maker inspects a model alien spaceship

This video shows a bunch more of the miniatures used in the movie:

I also ran across a few behind-the-scenes videos of the production if you’re in the mood to deep-dive (as I appear to be):

If you’re lucky enough to be in London in the next week and a half, you can go and see some of these props and sets and even eat at the diner at 180 Studios. Very. Jealous.


Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City

The top two comments on YouTube sum this trailer for Asteroid City up pretty well: “Just when you don’t think it can get more Wes Anderson, it gets more Wes Anderson.” and “You know a Wes Anderson movie is a Wes Anderson movie, but you can’t really describe a Wes Anderson movie to someone who has never seen a Wes Anderson movie.” Here’s the synopsis:

The itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.

Does it even matter to know this? At this point, you’re either throwing money at the screen after watching this trailer (*raises hand*) or you’re just not interested. For those in the former camp, Asteroid City opens in theaters on June 16.

Update: Asteroid City marks the first Wes Anderson movie without Bill Murray since Bottle Rocket โ€” the actor came down with Covid-19 just before filming began and had to withdraw.