When Paul Thomas Anderson‘s previous film “Licorice Pizza” was released by MGM and United Artists Releasing in 2021, the narrative surrounding the movie was that it was an example of then-MGM film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy spending a premium on an auteur director — and one who didn’t necessarily have a clear box office track record.
Produced on a budget of $40 million, “Licorice Pizza” made only $34 million worldwide, including just $17.3 million domestic. For another filmmaker who doesn’t have 11 Oscar nominations, that might put a damper on what they could command moving forward.
But for PTA’s latest “One Battle After Another,” Anderson is now commanding a budget that’s not just exponentially higher than any he’s worked with — a report in Variety had it at $115 million, but IndieWire understands it to actually be $130 million — it’s also higher than anything he’s grossed to date at the box office. Not a coincidence, De Luca and Abdy are back at the helm again, this time at Warner Bros., offering him the keys to the castle.
All that was at least the narrative early in the year, when De Luca and Abdy had a few costly flops in a row, namely the “Joker” sequel, and the duo was staring down the pike of another expensive auteur passion project in Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners.” The performance of that film shut people up, and the studio’s incredible hot streak that also includes “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” “Weapons,” “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” and “Superman” has given them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to PTA, at least for now.
But the question is warranted. Anderson’s most successful movie in his 10-film career is “There Will Be Blood,” the 2007 Best Picture nominee and Best Actor winner, which grossed $76.9 million worldwide according to Comscore, a little more than half of what “One Battle After Another” costs.
For all his other films, only “Phantom Thread” has crossed the $50 million worldwide mark, and that was just barely at $52.2 million. “Magnolia” clocks in at No. 3 with $48 million in 1999, “Boogie Nights” made $43 million in 1997, and “Licorice Pizza’s” $34 million comes in fifth.
The last and only time PTA worked with Warner Bros. Pictures (“Magnolia” and “Boogie Nights” were New Line Cinema releases, now a division of WB) was PTA’s worst-performing film (not including his barely-distributed debut “Hard Eight”), 2014’s “Inherent Vice,” which made just $14.8 million worldwide. Coincidentally, “One Battle After Another” is “inspired” by another Thomas Pynchon novel rather than a direct adaptation.
What sets “One Battle After Another” apart from all of those movies is the scale at which Warner Bros. will release it. Having skipped the festivals (PTA just isn’t a fan), Warner Bros. is positioning “One Battle After Another” as a commercial property and will give it a wide release. Every Anderson movie to date has received a platform release in an amount of theaters you can only count on one hand (OK, “Magnolia” got a whopping 7 screens). Comparing opening day results for “One Battle After Another” to anything in his repertoire will be apples and oranges. And when those films did expand, the most screens he’s ever been given were just shy of 2,000 for “Licorice Pizza.” “Battle” should easily surpass that.
It’s fitting too because “One Battle After Another” is arguably unlike any film Anderson has made, the rare film of his to be set in the 21st century and play like a relentless action movie. The $130 million budget certainly looks like it’s all there on the screen in the film’s elaborate riot scenes and chase sequences on foot and on wheels. And short of Tom Cruise, Anderson has arguably never had an A-lister on Leonardo DiCaprio’s level starring, so his own box office cache shouldn’t hurt.
Warner Bros. is also following a playbook that it executed to perfection with “Sinners,” releasing “One Battle After Another” on a plethora of film formats and premium offerings and getting Anderson out there to explain the value of it. Suffice it to say, Anderson has never had that IMAX bump either. All of that is a sign Warner Bros. is banking that audiences will feel this movie is one you have to see in a theater.