Paul Thomas Anderson Scouting Locations For New Movie, Set in 1970s High School

We only know a scant few details about Paul Thomas Anderson’s next movie, which has yet to start shooting. What we do know so far is that Focus Features will be producing it and that rumors are pointing to it being set in a 1970s San Fernando Valley high school. According to Variety, Anderson began casting the film earlier in the year. The film, an ensemble piece with intersecting storylines, is said to primarily follow a young high school student who also happens to be a successful child actor.

And now, we have the lighting people from PTA’s own “Phantom Thread,” who just did a digital Q&A about ‘Thread,’ stating that they are already scouting locations for PTA’s high school movie.

For a while now, we’ve known that PTA was hard at work on this new project. Back in April, it was revealed that Leonardo DiCaprio had passed on the film in favor of working with Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Valley,” which he then dropped out of because he wanted to work with Martin Scorsese instead on “Killers of the Flower Moon”.

I wrote earlier in the year:

Every generation has a cinematic master. You know, a director who stands above the rest in terms of artistry and groundbreaking works. These directors tend to be the ones that everyone else tries to catch up to. There usually are, with every generation, only a few that can have the title of ‘master.’ Paul Thomas Anderson is most definitely one.

After “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master” it was quite clear, that PTA was the master of the aughts. By the time “Inherent Vice” was released back in 2014, the Californian stoner movie divided critics and sowed some doubt as to whether PTA still held the throne of best working director alive — don’t worry though, 2017’s “Phantom Thread” reestablished him as the current “great one.”