Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
- Despite a rocky opening weekend, Moonrise Kingdom went on to gross over 5x its budget thanks purely to incredible audience word-of-mouth.
- The lead role in Moonrise Kingdom was originally offered to a massive A-list star who turned it down because they didn't understand the script.
Moonrise Kingdom is a 2012 American coming-of-age comedy-drama directed by Wes Anderson. Set on a fictional New England island in 1965, the film follows two 12-year-olds โ Sam Shakusky, an orphaned Khaki Scout played by Jared Gilman, and Suzy Bishop, a troubled girl played by Kara Hayward โ who fall in love through letters and run away together into the island's wilderness, sparking a community-wide search involving Suzy's lawyer parents played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand, the island's sole police captain played by Bruce Willis, and Sam's Khaki Scout troop leader played by Edward Norton. Wes Anderson's meticulous visual style โ symmetrical compositions, pastel color palettes, handmade props, and lateral tracking shots โ was deployed to create a storybook world that captured the magical intensity of first love as experienced by two misfit children.
Alexandre Desplat's whimsical score and Benjamin Britten's choral music gave the film an enchanted quality. Moonrise Kingdom earned $68 million worldwide on a $16 million budget.





