It’s been roughly two years since Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread destroyed us, and since then, we’ve listened to Jonny Greenwood’s incredible soundtrack for that film perhaps once a week, usually while pretending to float around our living room. Anderson’s been plenty busy since then, even making an IMAX movie with Thom Yorke for Netflix, but word has finally emerged about what his next project will be about, and more importantly, when and where it’ll be set.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anderson will be returning to the San Fernando Valley — a site that holds personal significance for the director, given that he both grew up there and has set a number of his movies there — and the new film will be set in the ’70s, which is groovy and great.
Here’s THR with the few other details they have about the project:
“The untitled film will be centered on a high school student who is also a successful child actor. Anderson will write, direct and produce the project through his Ghoulardi Film Company banner. Sources say casting is underway to find the lead and the project features a multitude of roles and could be ensemble in nature or have intersecting storylines.”
There’s still no word on a release date or a potential title for the film, and it seems to be an Anderson tradition at this point for the dude to wait as long as humanly possible to confirm the latter, unless he’s adapting a Thomas Pynchon novel. Remember when The Master literally didn’t get a title until four or five months before its release? We remember.
So, this sounds cool! Obviously, Anderson’s choice of era here will evoke memories of some other classic films — Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, Dazed and Confused, and any number of gloriously grody comedies from the cheaper side of ’70s cinema if you want to get down and dirty — but we’re fascinated to see the director return to an age that he’s quite familiar with. Only time will tell if this is more Inherent Vice or Boogie Nights, but we’re 100% down for whatever the master’s got in store for us.