Did Paul Thomas Anderson already finish shooting The Master?

According to Damon Wise from Empire Online, yes:

Amy Adams joins Paul Thomas Anderson's cast for his next film!

Via Deadline:

Amy Adams has formally been set to star in Paul Thomas Anderson's untitled film, which begins production later this month. She will play the wife of the character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. He plays a man who returns from witnessing the horrors of WWII, and in an attempt to find himself, he forms a belief system that catches on in the 1950s. Deadline revealed in early May that Adams was being courted. Joaquin Phoenix has also been set to play the faith leader's right hand man, and I've heard there have been conversations with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's Lena Endre and Laura Dern for other roles. The Weinstein Company acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film last month just before the Cannes Film Festival. Megan Ellison is producing through her Annapurna Productions banner, along with JoAnne Sellar and Daniel Lupi, with Ted Schipper exec producing.

Adams is coming off her Oscar-nominated turn in The Fighter, and she will do this film before starting production on Man of Steel, playing Lois Lane in the Zack Snyder-directed Superman franchise. reboot. Adams will next be seen in the Walter Salles-directed On The Road, which is being shopped for domestic distribution, and Disney's Muppets. She's repped by Brillstein Entertainment Partners and WME.

-Joey's Two Cents: The casting so far is very interesting, but everything surrounding a PTA flick usually is...thoughts?

Paul Thomas Anderson's next film will be distributed by The Weinstein Company!

Via Deadline:

The Weinstein Company has won a quiet but fevered bidding battle for worldwide distribution rights to the untitled next film by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film begins production June 13, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix so far set to star. Megan Ellison is financing. It is Anderson's first trip behind the camera since There Will Be Blood.

Hoffman and Phoenix are locked. As for the actresses, I'm told that Anderson is eyeing such actresses as Madisen Beaty (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) for a role, with Amy Adams, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Lena Endre and Laura Dern also mentioned as actresses Anderson is interested in. The auction was held at CAA headquarters late last week, with Fox Searchlight was also squarely in the mix.

This is the project that Anderson has worked on for a long time, once under the title The Master. He has greatly overhauled the script and now, Hoffman stars as a man who returns after witnessing the horrors of WWII and tries to rediscover who he is in post-war America. He creates a belief system, something that catches on with other lost souls. The film is fully financed by Ellison's Annapurna banner. At a time when the implosion of the indie film marketplace made pricey auteur films so hard to finance, Ellison has emerged as a something of a godsend to the small group of auteurs she is working with. She's enabled Anderson to make the movie at or near the $35 million budget the film was going to cost back when Universal stepped away. The deal gives TWC a big title to bring to the Cannes Film Festival this week.

-Joey's Two Cents: Harvey seems to amassing a new stable of auteurs for The Weinstein Company, much like how Mirimax used to be...thoughts?

Joaquin Phoenix to replace Jeremy Renner in PTA's Scientology movie?

It seems like Paul Thomas Anderson might be close to casting him, now that it looks like the flick is actually happening. Variety has the story:


Joaquin Phoenix, who hasn't acted since his "retirement" that precipitated "I'm Still Here," is in early talks to join Philip Seymour Hoffman in Paul Thomas Anderson's untitled religious drama.

Anderson is directing from his own original script, which chronicles a disaffected disciple's relationship with the founder of a new faith that closely mirrors Scientology.

Hoffman will play Lancaster Dodd, a charismatic intellectual known as The Master, while Phoenix would play Freddie Sutton, an alcholic drifter who becomes his right-hand man only to begin questioning his manipulative mentor.

Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures is looking to co-finance the period pic, which Universal was previously considering funding before having second thoughts about its mid-range budget.

Anderson and his longtime producing partner JoAnne Sellar will produce through the former's Ghoulardi Film Co., along with Ellison.

Robert Downey Jr. will star in 'Inherent Vice' for Paul Thomas Anderson?

It's looking like it, according to The Hollywood Reporter:

Robert Downey Jr. is making plans to fill the fall hole in his schedule with the lead role in Inherent Vice for writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson.

Anderson has been working on a screenplay adaptation of the 2009 Thomas Pynchon novel while trying to get another film -- an untitled exploration of a religious organization sometimes referred to as The Master -- off the ground. Once Downey dropped out of Disney's Oz, the Great and Powerful last month, it freed him to do another movie later this year after he shoots The Avengers for Marvel and Disney. His commitment to Anderson's movie has recently grown serious.