Wes Anderon has earned his reputation as a singular filmmaker. His style is unmistakable, dating back to his breakthrough indie hit “Rushmore” up through his Oscar-winning smash “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” There is no denying a Wes Anderson film when you see one. The filmmaker has worked consistently for going on 30 years now, which is no easy feat. There have been some speed bumps along the way, that much is certain, but Anderson always manages to recover.

One such speed bump came in 2009 with the release of Anderson’s stop-motion animated feature “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Though it was embraced critically, the film was not a winner at the box office, to put it somewhat mildly. Against a reported $40 million budget, the film made just over $46 million worldwide in its original run. Yet, that film’s relative failure ended up paving the way for one of his greatest successes. Namely, 2012’s “Moonrise Kingdom.”

In a 2012 interview with Deadline, Anderson explained that after “Fantastic Mr. Fox” flopped at the box office (something he takes responsibility for), it was harder to secure a larger budget for his next project. As a result, when he decided to pull the trigger on “Moonrise Kingdom,” he had to do so for a more modest sum. Per Anderson:

“I think after we made ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ and that movie didn’t do very well, we had to make ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ for less money than I feel like we would have under other circumstances. We probably would’ve had a little more, not a lot more and we still would have made the same movie anyways but it was a bit more of a grind than it might have been.”

Even though “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was not a big success in its day, it did eventually find its audience. It even got a Criterion Blu-ray release in 2019, which you can pick up on Amazon. Anderson’s films tend to have a long shelf life, which is not something all directors are afforded. Beyond that, the director learned a valuable lesson in making that film. “I’d rather make the movie I want to make than make the hit that he thought we might be able to make,” Anderson said in that same interview.

Ultimately, Anderson was able to secure a $16 million budget to make his love story about two runaway 12-year-old kids on the New England island of New Penzance in the ’60s. Making a period piece with an A-list cast on that budget is no easy task, but Anderson pulled it off. Even if it had to be with a smaller budget, he made “Moonrise Kingdom” the way he wanted to make it. As he alluded to, it was certainly more difficult under financial constraints, but it was also uncompromisingly his film.

Newcomers Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman led the cast as Suzy and Sam, respectively, but Anderson also wrangled together the likes of Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Francis McDormand, and Tilda Swinton, among others. Yet, the film’s total budget isn’t much more than what an A-lister might have earned for a blockbuster at the peak of their career. Luckily, Anderson’s reputation as a filmmaker makes it so that actors want to work with him, regardless of the payday.

“I think I made $4,200 on this movie,” Edward Norton said in a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly. “People ask me, ‘Why were you in that Prada ad in London?’ It’s because I want to do movies like ‘Moonrise Kingdom,’ and Wes doesn’t pay … I lost money, for sure, on every Wes Anderson movie I’ve ever done.” Norton has also said he would like to mirror Anderson as a director.

“Moonrise Kingdom” was a big hit both critically and commercially. It grossed $68.8 million at the box office globally, or more than four times its production budget. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars that year. The only Anderson movies to make more money were “Grand Budapest Hotel” ($163 million) and “The Royal Tenenbaums” ($71.4 million).

Taking less money but retaining creative control is the template Anderson has largely followed ever since. It’s a big part of what allowed “Asteroid City” to become a big hit, with an A-list cast once again working for less just for the chance to be in a Wes Anderson movie. If “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was a big hit, who knows? Maybe Anderson’s filmography looks a lot different.

“Moonrise Kingdom” is available to rent or buy on Prime Video.