Wes Anderson’s new movie is about a boy’s love for his dog in a dystopian future

The heart of Wes Anderson’s new stop-motion animation movie is a 12-year-old boy’s love for his pet.

The first trailer for Isle of Dogs was released today, and explains the core concept of the film, which is set in a dystopian Japan some 20 years in the future.

“Canine saturation has reached epidemic proportions,” according to the trailer, and the government has begun moving dogs to their own island. By leaving the pets to scrounge for garbage to live off of, the Japanese government can attempt to clean up the overrun streets. When one young boy wants to be reunited with his dog, Scout, he flies over to the island and embarks on a dangerous journey to be reunited with his best pup friend. The trailer for Isle of Dogs also puts a spotlight on some of the dogs audiences will be introduced to in the movie. There’s Chief, Rex, King, Duke, Boss and the aforementioned Scout.

Let’s cut to the chase: A movie about a young boy’s love for his dog and a dog’s love for its owner set against the backdrop of political turmoil and strife in a dystopian Japan is very enticing. Anderson has proved in the past with Fantastic Mr. Fox that he understands how to use stop-motion animation to create something special.

Anderson’s Isle of Dogs brings back some of his favorite actors to work with, including Edward Norton and Bill Murray, and to say the cast for Isle of Dogs is big would be quite an understatement. The screenshot below, which collects the names of the film’s biggest actors, does a pretty good job of conveying just how impressive the cast is.

For those who don’t want to squint at the screenshot below, the cast includes: Scarlett Johansson, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Ken Watanabe, Harvey Keitel, Fisher Stevens, Akira Ito, Kunichi Nomura, Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Liev Schreiber, Courtney B. Vance, Tilda Swinton, F. Murray Abraham, Yoko Ono, Akira Takayama and Frank Wood alongside Murray and Norton.

Fox Searchlight/YouTube

Isle of Dogs, Anderson’s first feature-length movie since 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, will be released on March 23, 2018.