I realize that, generally, old car brochures are very rarely used as the basis for major motion pictures. But maybe that’s a mistake? Movies have certainly been made on flimsier pretenses – there’s been multiple movies made based on board games, and I’m pretty sure there’s currently talks to bring some well-known cold cuts to the silver screen, at least if that treatment for Pastrami: the Movie I found in a Kinko’s recycling bin is any clue. Anyway, today I’d like to pitch this 1961 NSU Prinz 4 brochure as a concept for Wes Anderson’s next movie.
Yes, I’m not just pitching this concept to anyone, I’m pitching it to auteur-director Wes Anderson, maker of such films as The Fantastic Mr. Fox and even movies with actual people, like The Royal Tenenbaums. I think his particular aesthetic sense is very compatible with this brochure for this wonderful little rear-engined German car, and I think he could do this justice.
First, of course, we need to handle the casting for the main characters:
So, I think, going from left to right, we’d cast Alexander Skarsgård as Albemarle T. Blond over there, then maybe Aubry Plaza as Clametha Raventresses in the turquoise. Next, let’s say Moustache T. Fumbleforth there could be played by Stephen Yeun (he was great in Beef), and for the kid, let’s call him Chockful Damptrou, how about that Jeremy Maguire kid? And finally, I think Noirina S. Butterscaphe on the end would be played by Emma Stone.
That’s pretty star-studded, isn’t it? I bet Wes can work with these people, even if they’re not quite in his usual company of actors. Tell you what, just to keep Wes happy, let’s say Bill Murray will do the voice of the NSU Prinz 4.
Looking at these pictures, this picture pretty much writes itself, except for the dialogue and plot and characterization and setting and mise-en-scène and some other details. But it has that Wes Andersen look, and that’s what matters here. Is the kid the offspring of Moustache and Noirina? Maybe! Are Albemarle and Clametha an item? Possibly? The sky’s the limit here!
Look! The kid can have an exciting 20-minute scene where he packs and repacks that deep, roomy trunk until he gets it just perfect, which he does, after abandoning that birdcage and possibly setting that canary free, in what will no doubt be a powerful, beautiful scene.
Also, look how well that trunk gets packed!
Hot damn I love a well-packed trunk. Holy crap that’s satisfying. This is the scene I’ll be rewinding.
Wes Anderson loves cutaways, right? You know he does. This brochure offers some fantastic cutawayotunities that a director like Anderson can absolutely take advantage of.
In this scene, Clametha is discussing something with the Prinz, something important. It may have to do with whatever is in that box. The Prinz would have to be a major character here, as the brochure is literally about the car, but I think that’s what’s going to make this whole thing great.
Man, I can’t wait. Does Wes Anderson know how to get ahold of me? He must, right? I want to get this thing greenlit ASAP.
Am I the only one who finds every single Wes Anderson film to be absolutely insufferable?
No matter the cast, it’ll definitely be a better movie than The French Dispatch.
Lets ignore that Jerry Maguire kid is probably about 35 years old at this point lol
This just reminds me of a dream that I was traveling up 99 through the central valley, over and over, stopping at motels with those weird ass drive under overpasses.
Sorry, Jason, but Clametha Raventresses seems way too happy to be played by Aubrey. I’m going with Rachel Brosnahan instead. And I’m getting sick of seeing Emma Stone in everything, so let’s go with a different Emma for Noirina S. Butterscaphe, Watson. She’s been lazing around way too much the past decade anyway.
As for Moustache T. Fumbleforth, Steven Yeun is too yeun, er young, for this obviously graying older gent. Let’s go with a different frequent Anderson collaborator, Jeffrey Wright. Alexander Skarsgard is perfect, so we leave him in. As others have said, the kid from Jerry Maguire is way too old (damn, he’s 35!!!). How about Noah Schnapp from Stranger Things? Well, damn, he’s 21! Oh well, he still looks young.
What is wrong with you, Jason? Alexander Skarsgard!?! Why, it’s so obviously a Michael Fassbender role that I question whether you should even be casting movies at all!
Oh yeah, Pastrami, that roman à clef about Ken Forkish and Nick Zukin, sort of a hipster babe-in-the-woods Kitchen Confidential set in Portland OR. Writer was trying to ride multiple hype waves but the timing was off, Portland got expensive, Tony Bourdain died, and the zeitgeist moved on.
Some say S2 of The Bear was cribbed from Pastrami.
On an unrelated tangent, I’m always getting Wes Anderson and Wes Craven mixed up.
That sounds fun. I love the one where Owen Wilson breaks the fourth wall and brutally murders his brothers on that train in India as Owen Wilson. Very experimental.
Tilda Swinton as the boy. She can do anything!
I owned the 4-cylinder version of this car, and I can say that that array of luggage would never have fit in the trunk. The fuel tank took up two suitcases worth of space in that frunk. This appears to be a 2-cylinder Prinz, which I’m not so familiar with, but this cutaway shows no fuel tank at all.
It’s a German car, why not try for an all German cast? Michael Fassbender for the blond guy and Christoph Waltz for Mr Moustache. Diane Kruger for black dress lady. And… I think I just expended my well of known german actors.
I also came here specifically to cast Fassbender.
That last image looks like the man (a butcher?) is delivering groceries in the box, though it’s hard to tell what’s in it. Meanwhile, it’s not hard to tell that he’s thinking about delivering another kind of groceries in another kind of box. He could be a doctor, chemist or a mechanic, heck practically anything as Europeans are fond of dressing everyone in work coats.
Wes Anderson movies often centre around a certain type of middle-class failure or decline, the end of an era. He needs to make a movie about the NSU Ro 80, but include this as a little aside, a document of better times.
The box could push this towards a 7even-esque denouement.
(/Prinz looks inside box, sees battery of his wife Prinzess)
(/Bill Murray voice) Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!
Prinz proceeds to run over all the characters, stuffs them into frunk and drives away, his visage now stained with the blood of his victims.
Fin
“Wait, it’s a head? I was due for an engine rebuild, anyway! Man, RockAuto is quick!”
The 1961 NSU Prinz 4 certainly has the charm, grace, and swagger of a star, perhaps too much so. Really asking the cast to take quite the risk of being hopelessly outshined. There are far too few creative geniuses that could have composed this post without being accused of dipping into expired pain meds. Maybe Larry David or Bernie Sanders (they’re related you know)
Jason, I’m surprised you didn’t casually mention your cameo as teletype mechanic #4.
I need such a film, as their are simply too few cutawayotunities in my daily life!
No notes on casting choices. But speaking of Alexander Skarsgård, y’all should be watching Murderbot as he’s in it and it’s good.
I’ll say that I’m not
horizontallyopposed to you air-cooling these casting suggestions.It’s becoming clear to me that the reason old brochures were hand drawn was so they could create Tardis-like trunks and frunks that violate all laws of the physical universe.
Nary a tracksuit in sight, but I guess the bellhop getup with the stripey legs is close enough. Approved.
If I had to cast, the mustached man must be Benicio Del Toro given his prevalence in Anderson films, and in my head Michael Cera is the kid, yes I know he’s a full grown adult with a kid and all that, but it’s Michael Cera, so I think we can all give it a pass.
The actor Torch went for is a little bit old himself. I’m thinking of Charlie, the one white kid in Abbott Elementary, but my Google-fu is lacking and I keep getting hits on the Always Sunny crossover (not a tall wagony thing).
Moustache man needs to be French, to set up a throwaway line about how the cutaway’s rear edge is clean enough to be a rear door shutline if NSU had ever made a 4-door Prinz, to which the Chief Engineer (*this* would be Jason’s cameo, and played as an homage to Josef Ganz) would reply “Ja, if ve vere French!”
But given how Jason found it, it’s been in development hell for a while, since Kinko’s existed and possibly while he was living in LA where you’d expect to find scripts abandoned in every paper recycling bin.