Paul Thomas Anderson does Upton Sinclair
Filed under: Drama, Casting, Deals, Paramount, Newsstand
Director Paul Thomas Anderson has been working for several years on his
screenplay for There Will Be Blood, a
loose adaptation of Upton
Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!
- and now the movie is going ahead. Funded to the tune of around $25 million by a joint agreement between Paramount and
Miramax, the project is reportedly going to be rather epic: it's described as "an ambitious film and a compelling,
relevant story about family, greed, religion and oil," set in Texas. (Sounds sort of like Giant
to me, except for without James Dean.) Casting for the film has only
just begun, but Daniel Day-Lewis is already on board in the role of
"a pioneering Texas oil prospector." Based solely on the names currently associated with it (including Sinclair's), this movie's got a ton of potential. While it's hard to imagine a period piece about oil will be a blockbuster, the budget indicates that the studios are aware that it will be more of a niche project, appealing to Anderson's usual crowd. (Me, I'm easy to please: if you say "period piece," I'm there.)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-18-2006 @ 12:04PM
josh said...
I'm very excited for this. Whatever PTA's flaws as a filmmaker, his work is still generally interesting and, in general, very good. Even Punch Drunk Love (his worst, in my opinion) was wothwhile viewing. Talented filmmakers shouldn't wait so long between projects.
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1-18-2006 @ 1:07PM
Christopher Campbell said...
Punch Drunk Love is brilliant.
And talented filmmakers should wait as long as it takes to give each project the time it needs. Look at Kubrick and Malick and any other director who eventually deliver amazing work. The worst rush into whatever they're handed next without any invested interest.
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1-18-2006 @ 3:22PM
josh said...
Kubrick is a perfect example - he spent more than a decade between films, discarding a half dozen projects for one reason or another. I personally would have loved to seen his Napoleon film, or his Aryan Papers film. Or, for that matter, his AI.
As far as Malick goes, I doubt he spent 20 years working on Thin Red Line. He was focusing on private aspects for his life for those years, and of course we can't exactly begrudge him that - but as an audience member, I can't help but wish he had managed to squeeze a film or two in there.
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1-18-2006 @ 7:59PM
ThePete said...
"Funded to the tune of around $25 by a joint agreement between Paramount and Miramax,"
Um, I *think* there's a typo there. $25 seems pretty cheap for a movie budget--unless there's something I missing...
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1-18-2006 @ 8:17PM
Martha Fischer said...
Not at all, Pete - you'd be amazed at what can be done with $25 now days...
I fixed it, thanks.
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1-18-2006 @ 9:47PM
ThePete said...
No worries :)
Hey, *I* can make a movie on $25, but then I don't pay anyone or pay *for* anything and usually don't even finish editing the film...
hm... I guess I can make *most* of a movie for $25...
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2-12-2006 @ 7:42PM
ralph shaffer said...
What nonsense! How could Sinclair's novel - which is clearly about Southern California, U.S.C., Signal Hill, Long Beach, Los Angeles, the Calif. Criminal Syndicalism law, etc. etc. be filmed as though the locale was Texas? It'll come out like one of the movies Sinclair describes in the novel. And whatever happened to that 1975 effort to film this at Columbia? It must surely be a "loose adaptation" of OIL!
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