Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson’s first project ‘Bottle Rocket’ was initially like a Scorsese film

Most film lovers know that Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson are chums, but not everyone knows they met all the way back in college. (Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson, of course, met even earlier!) But it was in a dorm room at the University of Texas at Austin (“hook ’em, horns!”) where the two young lads first started conspiring about making movies together.

Wilson, currently seen on the Apple TV+ golf comedy Stick, stopped by SiriusXM’s TODAY Show Radio for a schmooze with Dylan Dreyer, and talked a bit about his undergrad years.

In addition to explaining how his suitemate Anderson refused to switch rooms at the second semester as he’d previously agreed, Wilson gave some insight into their first collaboration, which eventually became the feature film Bottle Rocket.

“We started writing together then,” he said of the old days. “And started on Bottle Rocket. And at first, it had kind of a different feel from what it ended up being. It was more sort of a [Martin] Scorsese type, kind of a crime, cool story.”

He continued, “And then we realized that wasn’t necessarily in our wheelhouse, it wasn’t our experience. And so it changed into what Bottle Rocket became, which was more sort of comedic.”

Anderson’s Bottle Rocket is, if you want to get technical, a crime movie. Owen and Luke Wilson play two best pals, Dignan and Anthony, who do, in fact, steal things, and have aspirations for larger felonious enterprises. But they are taking it slow — for example, the first “practice” heist is stealing things from Anthony’s family’s house. And only things on a specific list. After that, they hit a bookstore, and not particularly efficiently. In other words, it has none of the dark, edgy texture of GoodFellas, Casino, or The Irishman.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Bottle Rocket began its life as a 13-minute short film shot in black and white, that is essentially a compressed version of the movie’s first act. The local Texas boys got it in front of an actor, writer, producer, raconteur named L.M. Kit Carson, who was something of a legendary figure in independent filmmaking who cowrote Paris, Texas and was once married to Karen Black. Carson got the short to the Sundance Film Festival in 1993. Its peppy editing and sharp dialogue impressed producer James L. Brooks, whose credits go all the way back to The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Brooks became something of an early mentor to Anderson and Wilson. He helped get Bottle Rocket expanded into a feature film and into theaters in 1996 where… it did not exactly light the box office on fire. But enough of the right people saw it to recognize that Anderson was a visionary.

(Brooks also initially cast Wilson in a part in his next movie, the Jack Nicholson-led As Good as It Gets, but it was eventually excised. If you check out IMDb, though, you’ll see that Wilson does have an associate producer’s credit on that film.)

Wilson and Anderson continued to collaborate on screenplays after Bottle Rocket. Their next project was Rushmore and after that came The Royal Tenenbaums, which most would agree is where Anderson’s extremely particular, fastidious style truly blossomed (and only increases with each new picture.)

Wilson has put down the pen since then, with Roman Coppola now Anderson’s most frequent screenwriting collaborator, but he has continued to work in most of his old roommate’s movies ever since.

As for Scorsese, he was an early champion of Anderson’s movies, and the two have appeared on film industry panels together several times over the years.

Here’s a clip of Wilson appearing on the TODAY broadcast.