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On January 10, it was reported that Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, and Sean Penn had been cast to star in the next film by acclaimed director Paul Thomas Anderson.
While plot details are being kept under wrap, our sources tell us that the film is an adaptation of the 1990 novel Vineland and will feature characters such as an ex-hippie named Zoyd Wheeler, a federal agent named Brock Vond, and a teenager named Praire. Praire’s mother, Frenesi Gates, is also a main character in the story, which is primarily set in the early 80s and at a college in 1960s California.
Deadline‘s report about DiCaprio, Hall, and Penn being cast in the film noted that the film would be set in “contemporary” times, so perhaps Anderson ultimately decided to tell the story in a modern setting.
Here is the rumored plot of the film, according to sources:
In 1984 California, Zoyd Wheeler, an ex-hippie, performs a bizarre annual ritual to secure mental disability checks. Federal agent Brock Vond reappears, forcing Zoyd and his daughter Prairie out of their home. They seek refuge with old friends who reveal a tumultuous tale about Frenesi Gates, Prairie’s estranged mother.
In the 1960s, during the hippie era, the College of the Surf seceded to become the People’s Republic of Rock and Roll. Brock aims to dismantle PR and recruits Frenesi as a double agent.
If Anderson does direct Vineland it’ll be the second time that he’s adapted the Thomas Pynchon novel having previously directed Inherent Vice back in 2014.
“I’d wanted to adapt Vineland, but I never had the courage,” Anderson told Time Out Magazine back in 2014.
The upcoming film will be the first collaboration between PTA and DiCaprio, who most recently starred in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and is expected to earn yet another nomination for Best Actor for his performance.
As for Anderson, his most recent project was 2021’s Inherent Vice, which was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.