File under rumor mill, but it’s one that everyone has jumped on and now we feel like we can’t ignore just in case (or feel like following the herd, etc.).
According to the very excellent PTA fansite, Cigarettes and Red Vines, the follow-up to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood,” is a film set in Las Vegas and based off the Peter Bart novella, “Power Play,” that will be shot for Paramount.
Bart of course is the current editor-in-chief of Variety and the project is apparently set to star Jack Nicholson as a gambling entrepreneur from a Native American casino who decides to take on Las Vegas. Paramount acquired the novel for producer Robert Evans to develop back in 1998:
“I’ve got P.T. Anderson very excited about adapting and directing it. Before he directed ‘Boogie Nights,’ he covered the gambling terrain very convincingly with ‘Hard Eight.’ I’m also giving it to Jack Nicholson, who is perfect for the main role,” Evans told Variety in 1998. “It’s an extraordinary story. The largest gambling entrepreneurs are not Trump or Wynn or Kerkorian — they’re the Indians. They operate the most profitable casinos in the world and most are not even full-blooded Indians — they can be one-eighth and still control the tribe, the land and the casino. If they made the worst deal in selling Manhattan for $24, they’re making up for it with a weapon more lethal than bows and arrows.”
The ‘Power Play’ Controversy And The Politics of Conflicting Interests
“Power Play” was the subject of a major Hollywood controversy in the late ’90s. Variety has a strict conflict of interest policy, yet Bart – the EIC of the trade magazine of course, who just started a blog – wrote and sold the screenplay under the guise of a “novella” and under the pseduonymn, Leslie Cox (the maiden name of Bart’s wife),” to circumvent any such issues; the book was “sold” in 1998, but the existence of a screenplay dated 1996 was soon discovered. (Bart has long been accused of “co-existing” with Hollywood, which is a obvious euphemism for being, “totally in bed with Hollywood”; even worse Bart used to be a major producer at Paramount 1967 to 1974 who had worked closely with his buddy Evans).
Reporter Amy Wallace wrote a huge expose in Los Angeles magazine about the incident and Bart was ultimately suspended “indefinitely” in 2001 (he got a measly 3 weeks and was slapped with diversity training for some insensitive racial remarks he also made). Bart basically tried to defend himself by not “remembering to write the script.” A little taste from the 10-page-L.A. mag piece (a shorter version here).
I tell Bart I have a copy of the 1996 script he wrote. “The script I wrote,” Bart repeats, neither confirming nor denying. I look into the face of the man with the incredible memory. It is blank. But one knee starts jiggling, and he fiddles idly with the band of his watch. “Boy, you got me. Did I write a script? Now I’m facing memory loss,” he says, as I pull a copy of Crossroaders out of my bag. He looks it over. “Let’s just say this is a script that has Leslie’s name on it. What does that indicate? Therefore —therefore, what?” I repeat that I know he wrote it. “I may have written this,” he says. But, I counter, you said you hate writing scripts. “I do. Maybe this taught me never to do it again. I’d love to read this. Is it any good?”
Wallace, worked on the story for five months and did more than 50 interviews that included multiple conversations with Bart.
Anyhow, just a rumor at this point, but an interesting back story. Keep in mind, “There Will Be Blood,” lost money for Paramount Vantage and some even pointed the finger at ‘Blood,’ when they had to look at the low-grossing films that hurt the bottom dollar and were responsible for PV being absorbed by the larger Paramount umbrella. So, Paramount might not exactly be eager to jump the gun with another PTA “specialty” project.