Paul Thomas Anderson may adapt “Vineland”: When Paul Thomas Anderson’s name starts floating around the internet in hopes of a new project, you better believe it to be true. The mercurial American filmmaker is back as the buzzing subject of the H-town rumor mill with possibly his next major project. His last film was the brilliant coming-of-age tale, Licorice Pizza, released in 2021. According to the latest scoop by journalist Jeff Sneider, while speaking to Jordan Ruimy of World Of Reel, Anderson is exploring the possibility of adapting yet another Thomas Pynchon classic novel, “Vineland.”
Anderson is no stranger to his works. He previously adapted Pynchon’s “Inherent Vice,” released in 2009, into the quirky mystery noir film of the same name starring Joquin Phoneix, released in 2014. The above scoop has singled out a casting call for a “teenage girl who excels at Martial Arts” in November last year. Cassandra Kulukundis hosted the call. She is a frequent collaborator with Anderson and has previously worked on There Will be Blood, Inherent Vice, and Licorice Pizza.
Details of the call sheet indicate that this project could well start production as early as July of this year. Even though the film’s location is unknown, it is rumored that Los Angeles might be the place for the shoot. Pynchon’s story is set in California in 1984, although the non-linear narrative includes major flashbacks into the protagonist’s free-spirited joyride through the 60s. In Sneider’s opinion, the reason for Vineland’s name is because of how similar the plot of PTA’s next project is to the novel’s.
It is no coincidence that Anderson has mentioned adapting Vineland in his previous interviews. Right after Inherent Vice came out, Anderson said this in an interview with Time Out about his love for Pynchon’s work and his wish to adapt Vineyard.
“But I am the type of person who hears there’s a new Pynchon book, and I will go to the Internet five times a minute to see what new information there is. I am that pathological about it. So, when I heard there was a new book, I was just waiting and waiting for it to come out. I’d wanted to adapt Vineland, but I never had the courage. Then this book presented itself and seemed to encapsulate much of his work. It seemed to be a great way to translate him into a movie.”
He called the novel “borderline pathological” in another interview with IndieWire. Anderson definitely has a complex relationship with Pynchon’s works. His recent works have had a common theme of rebellion, whether it be in the more raw form in Licroce Pizza through teenagers or through the more sedate and grey-haired Reynold Woodcock in Phantom Thread.
If this rumor is true, we must brace ourselves for another hippie-laced narrative with enough retro and counterculture to spook traditionalists for a long time. This is a developing story, and we will surely be vigilant to confirm the story when more foundational details come out from Anderon’s camp.
