Wes Anderson is back! Well, he didn't really go anywhere, but the director sure does take his sweet time between movies. His latest, 'Moonrise Kingdom,' is not only one of our favorite films of the year so far, it's breaking box office records, so pardon us for wishing he'd work a little more often. Anderson fans still waiting for 'Moonrise Kingdom' to come to their city (or those wanting just a little more of a fix) are in luck: the filmmaker is apparently premiering a new short film online next week.

Coming Soon got the news straight from Anderson himself, who revealed that the short will be a direct companion piece to 'Moonrise Kingdom' and will feature one of the film's stars. Don't expect a traditional narrative, though. Anderson's description of the short sounds like an expansion on some of the feature's little details rather than a real story:

"[The character of Suzy has] a suitcase full of these young adult fantasy type novels...Sort of sci-fi/fantasy books. We had to invent them and give a little glimpse of each one. Different artists, most of whom very close to the filmmakers, were doing these. In fact, we have now animated them, each little passage, each in the style of the cover of the book. We've made a little short film that's hosted by Bob Balaban, the narrator in our movie. That will come out next week on the internet. It'll be a little companion piece to the movie."

It's a typically coy response from Anderson in that it casually announces the existence of the short, gives some juicy details and then abruptly stops short of explaining what the heck this short film actually is. What he's describing sounds like a series of animated vignettes in the style of old-school science fiction books with character-actor-extraordinaire Bob Balaban guiding us through them, but who knows?

This won't be the first time Anderson has paired a short film with a feature. In 2007, he premiered the short 'Hotel Chevalier' (a direct prequel to the events of 'The Darjeeling Limited') online prior to theatrical release. We don't yet know if this new short will be as important to 'Moonrise Kingdom' as that one was, but we'll know when it hits the web next week!

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