He started working on films with actor/writer Owen Wilson when the two met as students at the University of Texas in the early 1990s. Out of college, the two wrote, and Anderson directed, the comedy Bottle Rockets (first as a short, then as a feature in 1996), a quirky comedy that found a limited but enthusiastic audience. Anderson and Owen then reached a wider audience with Rushmore (1998, with Bill Murray) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, with Gwyneth Paltrow). Anderson has proven himself as a filmmaker with a distinctive style, earning a not-quite-cult following and appreciative nods from most critics. Anderson's movies are neither epic nor flashy; he creates characters and tells stories of relationships with understated humor, earning him comparisons to filmmaker Woody Allen. His other films include The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007) and a stop-motion animated feature based on Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, called Fantastic Mr. Fox, starring the voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep.