New Paul Thomas Anderson Movie Wide Release Date Set For December

Here's an early peek at your Christmas present: Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie, which may or may not be called Soggy Bottom, has set its wide release date for December 2021. We don't know a whole lot about the film just yet, but we do know it follows a high school student becoming an actor in the 1970s. The cast includes Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie, Alana Haim (of the band Haim), and Cooper Hoffman, son of the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, who frequently collaborated with Anderson.

The news of the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie release date comes from Deadline – who curiously bury it at the bottom of another story. While reporting that the Denzel Washington movie A Journal For Jordan has set a December 22, 2021 release date, Deadline also adds that Anderson's new movie will go wide on Christmas Day, December 25, 2021. The Film Stage, meanwhile, has confirmed the film will have a limited release starting on November 26.

And that's it! Deadline doesn't even give us the title. The working title, as of now, is Soggy Bottom, but there's a very good chance that'll change. For now, we know the film is set in the 1970s in the San Fernando Valley, and that the cast includes Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper, Alana Haim, and Benny Safdie. Hoffman is playing a high school student who becomes an actor. Anderson himself attended high school in the San Fernando Valley, so he's no doubt drawing on personal experiences here. Anderson shot the film for three months last year and wrapped in November 2020.

Soggy Bottom (or whatever it's called) will mark Anderson's first feature film since 2017's Phantom Thread. While he hasn't directed a feature he has kept busy, helming several music videos for the band Haim.