By BBC News Online's Rebecca Thomas

Wes Anderson may not be the most prolific film-maker but his third film, The Royal Tenenbaums, proves he has the focus to rival even his most experienced peer.

The Oscar-nominated movie is a quirky tragi-comedy about a dysfunctional family of oddball geniuses in New York.

The central character, on whom the story hinges, is wayward family patriarch Royal Tenenbaum.

Hackman plays the head of a family of failed geniuses

And, while the screenplay was still wet on the page, Anderson was adamant that no one but Gene Hackman could carry it off.

"With Gene Hackman in the role we felt it would be perfect casting. I don't know why. It just always seemed like a natural thing, that we would have him playing Royal," says Anderson.

Two years before filming began, Anderson met with Hackman. But, though "very nice and encouraging" the actor rejected Anderson's offer.

But determined to get his man, Anderson pursued Hackman until he finally relented. "I was essentially stalking him," Anderson says.

"The one thing we had on our side was the fact that I wasn't sure I wanted to do the movie if he wasn't going to do it. That made him stop and rethink his decision."

Star cast

In the film, Hackman's Royal Tenenbaum is a once-illustrious but now bankrupt lawyer.

He declares he is dying to win sympathy and ingratiate himself with his estranged wife and three failed child prodigies.

Anderson was determined to hook Hackman

Reunited for the first time in two decades - effectively since Royal upped and left - the family's history of broken dreams comes frothing to the fore.

Despite the film's black humour, its tone is firmly tongue-in-cheek, reminiscent of Anderson's previous works Rushmore and Bottle Rocket.

And each member of the big star cast - including Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray and Ben Stiller - play their peculiar characters with aplomb.

Anderson says all had to be actors with the presence to be both larger-than-life and still function as part of a group.

But, he adds, most were chosen because they seemed to have something in common with their roles.

"Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, certainly Anjelica Huston, come from families of real achievers and fame is a big issue for them," says Anderson.

And, as Anderson only discovered while filming, Hackman's father - like Royal Tenenbaum - walked out when he was a small boy.

Fairy tale

A Texan and avid reader of New York-based fiction, Anderson had ample material for his imaginative film.

"I'm from Texas and I had this not quite accurate idea of what New York was like," says Anderson.

The film has a rich, fairy tale quality

"I wanted to create some sort of exaggerated version of that imaginary New York."

He gives his presentation of the people and places of New York a colourful, fairy tale quality.

And, in keeping with the inspirations of the world of New York literature, the film is related like a novel divided into chapters.

"I had this idea that rather than the movie being based on a book, the movie would be the book," says the director.

"Exciting"

Anderson's big achievement in this area is that, like a novelist, he pays painstaking attention to detail in delineating his characters.

Each has a "uniform" worn since their talents were at a height, reinforcing the idea that the Tenenbaum children peaked in childhood.

Actor Owen Wilson is Anderson's long-time friend

"The whole goal is for the stylised stuff to help to make it exciting to be in the world of these characters," says Anderson.

"But they are also there to seem natural and to give you details that you respond to and tell you more about them as you go along."

Anderson co-wrote The Royal Tenenbaums with his long-time friend and actor Owen Wilson, as indeed he did his earlier works.

Owen, who starred in Shanghai Noon and Behind Enemy Lines, is also in The Royal Tenenbaums and seems to want to concentrate more on his on-screen career.

But, even if this signals an end to his writing collaboration with Anderson, the feeling is that the young director will be entertaining audiences with his own original ideas for some time to come.

The Oscars ceremony will be broadcast live on BBC Two on Monday 25 March from 0045-0500 GMT and reported live on BBC News Online.