Take a trip to Wes Anderson’s outlandish desert outpost, Asteroid City

Murmurings about Wes Anderson’s latest film first began in May, 2021, where sets including a mock train station and desert landscapes were spotted outside the town of Chinchón, Spain. Initially, there was speculation that the Grand Budapest Hotel director was shooting a Western, choosing locations favoured by the likes of Sergio Leone (of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly fame). Now, though, we know that the sets actually simulated a small desert town in 1950s America, the setting of Anderson’s upcoming Asteroid City.

Luckily for us, some of these sets have also made their way to London to coincide with the release of Asteroid City on June 19. This follows a massive exhibition of sets, props, sketches, costumes and miniatures from Anderson’s last film, The French Dispatch, in 2021, which offered a unique insight into the impossibly intricate world he created in the fictitious French town of Ennuie-sur-Blazé, as seen through the eyes of writers at an expatriate American magazine.

Curated and presented by 180 Studios and Universal Pictures, the new, immersive Asteroid City exhibition at 180 the Strand performs a Fantastic Mr Fox-style deep dive into Wes Anderson’s world once again. Visitors are transported into the director’s whimsical imagination via his signature miniatures, artworks, and props – from the telephone box that Jason Schwartzman uses to tell Tom Hanks that the family car has exploded in the middle of the desert, to the pastel-hued vending machines that keep the residents of Asteroid City stocked up on snacks, cigarettes, and ammunition.

Elsewhere, original sets allow guests to recreate conversations between Schwartzman and his teary co-star, Scarlett Johansson, and costumes offer a hint of desert style (see: lots of double denim and cowboy chaps). Feeling thirsty after all that desert trekking? You can even kick back in the film’s iconic 50s diner, recreated onsite and stocked with American classics, from Martinis and milkshakes, to pancakes and cherry pie.

In case you somehow haven’t seen the Asteroid City trailer yet, a word of warning: visitors should also keep an eye out for extraordinary encounters. The film is set during an annual convention for junior stargazers and space cadets, which sees students and their parents – as well as professional astronomers and the military – descend on the site of an asteroid impact from thousands of years before. The usual itinerary is disrupted, however, by a series of unexpected and “world-changing” events.

Alongside Schwartzman and Johansson, the Asteroid City cast features a pantheon of stars from the Wes Anderson cinematic universe, as well as a few newcomers, including Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, and Jeff Goldblum.

Revisit the trailer below, and get a preview of the Asteroid City exhibition at 180 Studios in the gallery above. You can find tickets here.