There have been these persistent rumours about Paul Thomas Anderson’s upcoming “Soggy Bottom” being a return to the same style he adopted in his 1997 breakthrough, “Boogie Nights,” and 1999’s “Magnolia.” This means a mosaic cast of characters and storylines that eventually intertwine and connect with each other.
In “Boogie Nights,” PTA was inspired by the cinema of his mentor, Robert Altman, who passed away in 2006. He’s dabbled around with different influences since then; the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Max Ophuls and Jonathan Demme have all played a key role in shaping PTA’s post-Magnolia style of filmmaking.
However, it’s Altman who has had the biggest impact. In fact, to receive insurance for the shoot of his final film, 2006’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” a dying Altman hired PTA as a "backup" director to observe filming at all times and be prepared to take over for the seriously ill Altman.
Back to “Soggy Bottom,” we don’t know anything about the plot, but what we do know is that it being very much in the spirit of ”Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” means there will be an assortment of characters played by actors such as Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Benny Safdie, Alana Haim, Skyler Gisondo, and, most intriguingly, Cooper Hoffman (son of the late great Phillip Seymour Hoffman).
I wrote back in July —
“Soggy Bottom” is, without a doubt, the most anticipated movie of the year. IMDB has it listed as having a November 26th, 2021 release date in the United States, U.K. and Canada. That is not surprising news at all since production had officially wrapped in late November on PTA’s ninth feature film.”
“Little is known about director Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, except that it is set in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley during the 1970s and centers on a high school student who is also a child actor. Bradley Cooper was cast in the film just a few weeks ago and, this past weekend, the 45-year-old actor returned to the set with his Jon Peters-inspired get-up.”
“There have been rumors pointing towards the character Cooper plays in the film actually being Peters, the producer of 1976’s “A Star is Born,” leading to speculation that this could be about the making of the Streisand-Kristofferson film (cheeky kind-of-casting when you realize Cooper also wrote, directed and starred in his own remake of the film back in 2018). Based on leaked pictures from the secretive set, actress-musician Alana Haim’s does, in fact, look like Barbra Streisand’s from the same era.”
“Also seen on-set during the shoot in Encino, California, writer-director-actor-editor Benny Safdie who will play real-life politician Joel Wachs. A Los Angeles Councilmember, Wachs was a closeted gay man with a larger-than-life personality who didn’t come out until the late ‘90s.”
“Phillip Seymour Hoffman son, Cooper Alexander Hoffman is in the film as well, possibly as the lead. The casting of Cooper is quite touching when you come to realize that his father and PTA had a legendary four-film director-actor partnership (“Magnolia,” “Boogie Nights,” “Punch-Drunk Love,” and “The Master.”) Hoffman Jr. is not a trained actor, he doesn’t even have an IMDB page to his name, and we don’t really know if he has landed a prominent role in “Soggy Bottom,” but this is the kind of casting that can’t help but put a smile on any movie fan’s face.
“Principal Photography on “Soggy Bottom” began around 6 months ago, with a shooting schedule of 3+ months expected. They seemed to have barely made that deadline. Everyone, from the cast to the crew, has been COVID tested weekly. on-set There was no stage shooting planned for the film, as everything has already been shot on location — I expected nothing else from PTA.”
The man doesn't stop. James Gunn has confirmed he's already hard at work writing his next film, even as ‘Man of Tomorrow’ makes its way toward theaters next summer.