Since making pretty much the best film of his already stellar career with 2007’s “There Will Be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson has gone to ground for a couple of years – we knew he was working on something, and there were rumors of a biopic of outlaw Bob Danton, but no concrete word. Now, thanks to Variety, we know what the auteur’s next work will be.
Anderson has set up an untitled historical drama, set in the 1950s, at Universal, which follows ‘The Master,’ “a charismatic intellectual who hatches a faith based organization that begins to catch on in America,” according to the trade. The Master’s path crosses with a young drifter named Freddie, who becomes his lieutenant, but who, as the new religion catches on, finds himself becoming disillusioned. Philip Seymour Hoffman, who’s given spectacular supporting performances in the director’s “Hard Eight,” “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia” and “Punch-Drunk Love,” will take the lead role.
It sounds not dissimilar to “There Will Be Blood,” with the central relationship between a charismatic leader and a younger man, with religion at the heart of it, and if it gives Hoffman a role as good as Daniel Plainview, we’re unspeakably excited. Variety says that the film isn’t targeted specifically at the likes of Scientology or Mormonism, but instead “explores the need to believe in a higher power, the choice of which to embrace, and the point at which a belief system graduates into a religion.”
Very few mainstream American directors out there are prepared to tackle religion on such a serious basis as this – Michael Tolkin’s “The New Age” and “The Rapture” were pretty good attempts almost two decades ago, but that’s about it. That would also appear to be the major stumbling block here – the movie’s budgeted at about $35 million, and mid-budgeted adult dramas are the hardest things to get financed these days, particularly at Universal, who got burned by “Duplicity” and “State of Play” earlier in the year. But we’re sure that if they balk, someone else will step up