Novel
- Creator Breakdown: The book was written at a dark time in Roald Dahl's life. He had already lost one of his five children to measles and witnessed another one suffer from water on the brain as the result of a car accident. It was only natural that he would be spurred on to write a tale portraying the father as a protector of the family.
- Executive Meddling: A positive example from the novel: The publishers flat-out refused to use the original ending, which would have featured Mr Fox stealing food from local supermarkets. Dahl was delighted by his agent's alternative suggestion that he steal from his tormentors' farms instead, which he immediately recognised as an improvement.
- The movie combines these endings: the supermarket is co-owned by the farmers.
Film
- Acclaimed Flop: The film received near unanimous critical acclaim from both critics and audiences alike and quickly became regarded as one of Wes Anderson's best films. Despite this praise however, the movie was not a box office success and only barely surpassed its 40 million budget, making only $46,471,023 in total and that was largely thanks to worldwide sales, as it bombed domestically, only making $21,002,919 in the US.
- Approval of God: Though Roald Dahl was long dead at the time of this film's release, his wife Felicity loved it, and noted that Roald himself would've also enjoyed the adaptation if he had lived to see it.
- Cast the Expert: Chef Mario Batali voices the Supreme Chef Rabbit.
- Celebrity Voice Actor:
- George Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon, Jason Schwartzman. Several of whom are regular American Empirical players.
- Jarvis Cocker, who voices Petey, is significantly less well-known Stateside than he is in the U.K. (only being known in the States for hijacking a Michael Jackson performance of "Earth Song" at the 1996 Brit Awards), but counts nonetheless.
- Descended Creator: Wes Anderson himself plays Weasel in the film.
- Enforced Method Acting: As per tradition with Anderson's films, the recording of the voices was somewhat peculiar. Rather than recording in a booth, the actors performed on-location in various natural environments, such as a farm, an open field and even an underground dirt tunnel.
- Real-Life Relative: Kristofferson is voiced by Eric Chase Anderson, the director's brother.
- Screwed by the Network: Courtesy of Tom Rothman, of course. It was dropped one week before Thanksgiving weekend at only four theaters nationwide, and got a wider release with almost nothing in regards to promotion the next week. By then, it had The Blind Side and Twilight: New Moon to compete with. Needless to say, it was doomsday for the movie.
- Vindicated by Cable: While the movie didn't do well in theaters, it found a bigger audience on DVD/Blu-ray and VOD, as well as streaming once it started becoming available there. It would later become one of the very few animated films to be added to The Criterion Collection.
- What Could Have Been:
- Henry Selick (who collaborated with Anderson in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) was planned to do the animation for the film, though he would leave the project in 2006 for other projects and subsequently be replaced by Mark Gustafson.
- Cate Blanchett was supposed to voice Mrs. Fox, but left for unknown reasons.
- Written-In Infirmity: Meryl Streep had a cold while recording, which is alluded to in the beginning when Mr. Fox asks how Felicity's visit to the doctor went. (Though it's also possible that that Mrs. Fox went to the doctor for a pregnancy check, considering how all the dialogue in the first scene builds up towards the reveal that she is with child.)
