Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master will finally hit theaters on September 14th, but he’s already got his eyes set on his next project: an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 stoner-detective novel, Inherent Vice. You may remember we reported about Inherent Vice starring Robert Downey, Jr. back in December, though Anderson didn’t mention anything about RDJ’s involvement. The director told Screen Daily:
I’m hoping we can get Inherent Vice going soon. That’s what I’m writing now. It’s taking my mind off this, actually. It’s a lot of fun. It’s such a different piece, though. It’s nice to have a collaborator, as it were, through working on the book.
It’s unclear if Anderson has been meeting with Pynchon at all while adapting the book into a film. He told Screen Daily that he was trying to “communicate with the book, mainly.”
Pynchon’s always been a private person, though not a recluse (i.e., J.D. Salinger). The author hangs out with other writers living in New York City. I took a class taught by the novelist Stephen Wright (not the comedian Steven Wright) who got a blurb from Pynchon on one of his books. I’m pretty sure they’ve hung out multiple times, though I’ve avoided being nosy about it even though I totally want to know what he’s like in person. After the cut, the trailer for the book Inherent Vice featuring the voice of Thomas Pynchon.
[Screen Daily via First Showing]