Paul Thomas Anderson is well known for building amazing ensembles - bringing all kinds of ridiculous, A-list talent together for both Boogie Nights and Magnolia - and he appears to be doing it again for his next project, an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's detective flick Inherent Vice. The Master star Joaquin Phoenix came on to replace Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role back at the start of the year, but since the project has picked up steam it has also added Benicio Del Toro, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone and Martin Short. And he's not done yet!
As production gets ready to start rolling this summer, Deadline has gotten word that Josh Brolin has also been added to the fantastic ensemble, and that Sean Penn, who just recently co-starred with Brolin in Gangster Squad earlier this year, is also thinking about signing on. Unfortunately the site doesn't have any information on the characters that the two actors might play in the story, but does say that Brolin's is a "key role."
Adapted by Anderson, Inherent Vice is set in the late '60s/early 70s and centers on a pothead private investigator named Larry "Doc" Sportello (Phoenix). The plot kicks off when the protagonist gets a call from an ex-girlfriend who wants his help in a boiling situation involving her, a real-estate mogul, and the real-estate mogul's wife.
While Brolin had Gangster Squad start off the year, his 2013 is far from over. On October 4th he'll be playing the lead in Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame To Kill For; on October 25th he will star in Spike Lee's Oldboy; and then to close out the year on Christmas he'll have Jason Reitman's Labor Day in limited release.
