We announced late last year that There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson‘s next film will be The Master starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. We know the film will be a period piece (taking place in the early 1950s) and Hoffman will be the “master” of his religion, taking on a young drifter as his right-hand man.
Thanks to Deadline we now know who is in the running for the young drifter who questions his mentor; The Hurt Locker star and Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner. They also report that Universal will not make the $35 million film because of how hard Green Zone flopped. Paul Greengrass‘ latest brought it less than $15m on over $100m budget. Universal doesn’t want to take another chance so they have dropped the project. “Talks are serious” for Bill Pohlad’s River Road production company to fully finance the film. They have been a part of Into The Wild, Brokeback Mountain and the upcoming Terrence Malick drama The Tree of Life as well as Doug Liman‘s Fair Game. Pohlad is the principal investor in Apparition, the new distribution company headed by Bob Berney.
PTA hasn’t made a bad film yet and The Master sounds like another great project. I’d love to see Renner get the part, as I loved his work in The Hurt Locker. I’m glad the film got (likely) picked up by another producer. Check back with TFS for all updates on The Master.
What do you think about Renner possibly joining the next PTA project?