Yesterday’s piece, via Jeff Sneider, that Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest cost $175 million is making some waves (so is my other piece about Euphoria, and, by the way, that one’s coming from a very strong source).
An in-the-know journalist is telling me this morning that Anderson’s latest is in fact a reworking of “Vineland,” based in an alternate reality America and has Trump/MAGA elements sprinkled to it. It’s the hippies vs MAGA, they tell me, but that’s just scratching the surface of what PTA has in store here. Pynchon’s novel was set during the Reagan-era.
I’m hearing that this one has action movie elements, incorporating the biggest stunts of PTA’s career. Also, Sean Penn is rumored to be playing the head of a white supremacist group who tries to get rid of an interracial child he had in the ‘60s with Regina Hall’s character. DiCaprio is the adoptive father. It all just sounds completely bonkers.
The supposed MAGA elements would make sense considering that in February 2023 Sneider was hearing that PTA’s latest was a father/daughter story “about the current GOP” that might feature as a side character… Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene!
Sneider reported that PTA was looking for an actress to play Taylor Greene, adding that this intel came from a very credible source.
PTA has mentioned the novel, “Vineland,” numerous times over the years, and in a 2014 Time Out interview even insinuated that he tried to script it: “I'd wanted to adapt “Vineland”, but I never had the courage. It seemed to be a great way to translate [Pynchon] into a movie.”
Replacing Reagan/Nixon with Trump makes sense. If you’ve read the novel then a “contemporary” Vineland could be pulled off. Also, replace the ‘60s hippies with today’s ultra-progressives. Obviously, PTA would have to take some major liberties with the source material.
Honestly, all of the intel we’ve had about this film is leaning towards this being a VERY loose adaptation of “Vineland”. Daniel Richtman even confirmed it late last year. The only hesitation I have with all of this is why in the living hell would Warner Bros greenlight a $175 million film, directed by PTA, based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, and go as far as to release it commercially in the summer of 2025, and in IMAX, no less? The entire thing just sounds ABSURD. It’s the definition of a risky Hollywood endeavor.