Are the studios going for an Oscar bid with Paul Thomas Anderson’s belated follow-up to 2002’s “Punch Drunk Love”? Titled “There Will Be Blood,” Anderson’s long-awaited fourth film is set for a December 26 release — essentially the latest possible entry for 2007 Oscar eligibility one can get.
Anderson recently spoke to EW about the film and revealed some of the movie’s creative origins. Evidently, ‘Blood’ wasn’t necessarily supposed to be PTA’s ‘Punch Drunk’ successor. Tired of his writing voice and style, he began adapting the novel “Oil,” by Upton Sinclair purely as an exercises to break him out of his writing rut. “I was really sick of the way I was writing,” PTA told EW. ”Everything looked as though I had written it, and that was a horrible feeling.”
However, what was intended to be an exercise ended up being a full-length feature. Essentially, he couldn’t stop writing the story of a ruthless prospector digging for black gold in California. ”I didn’t think I would end up adapting the [whole] book, but it turned out that way.”
Apparently the first 100 pages of the script stay true to the novel and then the last half deviates to focus on the relationship between the greedy prospector Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) and his son (played by newcomer Dillion Freasier). The rest of the cast is mostly unknown natives of the remote desert town of Marfa, Texas (which doubled for early 20th century California) aside from Paul Dano who plays the priest Eli Sunday.
Anderson credits ‘Blood’ with rejuvenating his creative process and influencing other projects. ‘I’m writing something new now — and I actually like it,” but laughed: ”I know that will end.” The trailer for “There Will Be Blood,” can be viewed here. According to the hit-or-miss reliable IMDB, Jon Brion will be on board once again as the music composer. Brion has worked on almost all of PTA’s films including, “Hard Eight,” “Magnolia” and “Punch Drunk Love” (Michael Penn was credited with the score for “Boogie Nights,” but Brion did contribute as a musician)
