When novelist and Simpsons voice artist Thomas Pynchon released his family-friendly stoner detective novel, INHERENT VICE, in August 2009, CAA instantly began shopping the novel around for its film adaptation. It wasn’t long before Vulture’s Claude Brodesser-Ackner broke the news that none other than Paul Thomas Anderson himself would be writing and directing the adaptation.
Anderson and producer JoAnn Sellar had been quite vocal during the promotional phase of Anderson’s Oscar-nominated film THE MASTER last year and early this year, that as soon as they were finished with that they would jump on INHERENT VICE immediately and begin shooting in late April or early May. Yesterday The Playlist reported that, in a rare glimpse of professionalism and on-their-game organization, Anderson and his team are indeed ready to begin shooting the film in May: “He’ll be shooting on regular 35mm stock and will reunite with Robert Elswit, who has shot all of his pictures (except ‘THE MASTER’) … The 384-page novella is a bit more straightforward than usual Pynchon fare, and follows a private detective uncovering a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer in drug-kissed 1960s Los Angeles. Many reviewers have even drawn comparisons to the psychedelic noir of ‘The Big Lebowski’.”
This past December Robert Downey Jr. had made it clear he desperately wanted the role of Doc Sportello, but it’s been confirmed that Joaquin Phoenix will be hopping on board to play the lead. The term “inherent vice” as a phrase refers to a hidden defect (or the very nature) of a physical object that causes it to deteriorate because of the fundamental instability of its components. In the legal sense, inherent vice may make an item an unacceptable risk to a carrier or insurer. If the characteristic or defect is not visible, and if the carrier or the insurer has not been warned of it, neither of them may be liable for any claim arising solely out of the inherent vice. You can pick up your own copy of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice at Amazon.
