Some of you gave me the side eye when I said Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” had a $175 million budget. But hey—I’m not crazy, and neither is Jeff Sneider (or so I think.) You hear what you hear.
Regardless, early reports put the film’s budget somewhere between $100–$125 million. That later settled at an agreed-upon $140 million. Now, Variety is citing the same $175 million figure that’s been floating around.
Paul Thomas Anderson‘s “One Battle After Another,” another WB tentpole starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is bypassing Venice and isn’t expected to appear at Telluride. Given the film’s reported $175 million budget, the studio has chosen to avoid festivals entirely rather than risk the critical scrutiny that might dampen its commercial prospects.
What an enormous gamble this is given that PTA’s most successful film (“There Will Be Blood”) only managed to make $76M worldwide. Sure, this latest one has Leonardo DiCaprio in it, and is banking on an IMAX rollout, but it’s turned into the definition of a RISK.
For the record, I hope the film is a hit. A big-budget PTA success could mean more ambitious swings from him, and from studios willing to take those risks. No one is rooting for this to tank. We are thrilled PTA got a blank check to make whatever the hell this film is.
I just love how PTA somehow managed to convince Warners to give him $175M to direct a Thomas Pynchon adaptation. Did they even know the plot was loosely based on Pynchon’s “Vineland”? Maybe not. I can definitely imagine a scenario where PTA initially pitched the project to Warners without mentioning Pynchon’s name a single time.
If only more great directors could pull off getting a major studio to fund a passion project at this scale, but the list of those who can is short: Nolan, Scorsese, Cameron, Villeneuve, Spielberg, who else?