Filming took place between November 2018 and March 2019, with cinematographer Robert D. That December, the film was officially announced, with Anderson calling it a 'love letter to journalists'. The project was first mentioned in August 2018 as an untitled musical set after World War II.
Bill Murray also stars as Arthur Howitzer Jr., the paper's editor, while Owen Wilson appears in a short segment that introduces the film's fictional setting of Ennui-sur-Blasé. 'The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner' features Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, and Stephen Park, and follows the kidnapping of a police commissioner's son. The second, 'Revisions to a Manifesto', is inspired by the May 68 student protests, and stars Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, and Lyna Khoudri. The first segment, 'The Concrete Masterpiece', follows an incarcerated and unstable painter, and stars Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton and Léa Seydoux. It features a large ensemble cast and follows three different storylines as the French foreign bureau of the fictional Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun newspaper publishes its final issue. The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, or simply The French Dispatch, is a 2021 American anthology comedy drama film written, directed, and produced by Wes Anderson from a story he conceived with Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, and Jason Schwartzman.
