Paul Thomas Anderson Taking Over Inherent Vice Adaptation

While his last few films have been relatively far apart, it may not be all that long (hopefully) until we see a new picture with director Paul Thomas Anderson’s name attached to the credits.

Currently in Venice in promotion of his latest masterpiece, The Master (which is playing the acclaimed and historic festival), Anderson chatted up Screen Daily (and thanks to The Playlist for digging this up) only to reveal that he’s set to take on a much talked about adaptation a novel penned by the beloved Thomas Pychon.

The director will re-team with backers Annapurna Pictures (who are the key reason as to why we have the auteur’s latest picture) and will write a new draft of the screenplay for an adaptation of Pychon’s Inherent Vice.   Following the story of a detective who unearths a kidnapping plot in ‘˜60’s LA, the film is described by many as a film similar to something like Pineapple Express or The Big Lebowski, giving a comedic take on the genre of film noir, making this a film that is screaming for the auteur’s hands to take over.

Personally, while I’m not familiar with the novel, I am familiar with PTA’s work, and firmly believe that he’s the greatest filmmaker of his generation, and has churned out, in his last two pictures, two of the greatest American films of this era. Basically described as a stoner-comedy noir, the premise seems like an oddly perfect fit for PTA, a director who has made a career off of testing himself and toying around with various genres. While it’s not entirely set in stone that he’ll helm the film, with his involvement at the script level one would have to assume that he’ll take the project on in a much more, hands on way, so here’s to hoping that we’ll be seeing this sucker hit sooner than we originally thought.

Source Screen Daily / The Playlist