We’re under 90 days out from the release of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” with the director’s latest officially locked for September 26 release — a slot that’s practically begging for a Venice premiere if Anderson decides to go the festival route.
As expected, the film is being positioned for a deluxe IMAX and 70mm release. If you happened to catch “F1” over the weekend, you may have seen the brand-new teaser, offering fresh glimpses of footage. That teaser is now online, albeit in a shamefully vertical format — a proper widescreen version should surface soon.
Warner Bros still appears to be feeling out the best way to position Anderson’s latest. According to someone who attended a recent test screening, the post-film questionnaire focused less on the movie itself and more on how to actually market it. Their current strategy seems to now be, release a teaser after the trailer. Bold.
This marks Anderson’s first collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, something the two nearly made happen for “Boogie Nights” in the ‘90s. A few weeks back, I had posted an in-depth reaction from a recent test screening of the film.
“One Battle After Another” is loosely adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s dense 1990 novel “Vineland,” though Anderson has relocated the action from the Reagan-era setting to a contemporary backdrop. DiCaprio stars as a former radical turned fugitive father, quietly raising his daughter off the grid. Their past catches up to them when a ghost from the old days—Sean Penn, playing a white supremacist military figure—comes back into the picture, triggering a cross-country pursuit.
Backing up DiCaprio in the cast are Regina Hall, Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Chase Infiniti, and Alana Haim. Word from early test screenings pointed to a heavy dose of thrills, with car chases and explosions. This might be the closest PTA’s ever come to making a full-blown action movie.