Jonny Greenwood Is Scoring Paul Thomas Anderson’s Mysterious New Movie Starring Leonardo DiCaprio
Jonny Greenwood has composed the original score for the last five Paul Thomas Anderson movies, dating back to There Will Be Blood way back in 2007. Unsurprisingly but delightfully, he’s about to make it six straight. A new profile of Greenwood in The Guardian pegged to his new eight-hour organ piece “268 Years Of Reverb” confirms that the Radiohead and the Smile member is doing the music for Anderson’s Licorice Pizza follow-up.
The movie is currently shrouded in mystery. We do know the cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio — his first collaboration with PTA, get stoked — as well as Sean Penn, Wood Harris, and Regina Hall, as well as music stars Teyana Taylor, Junglepussy, and Alana Haim, who famously made her acting debut in Licorice Pizza. But its title and premise have not been revealed. Many have speculated that it’s an adaptation of Vineland, author Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 political satire about hippie rebels fighting against “fascistic Nixonian repression” in 1984.
“I’m incredibly lucky that Paul indulges me and gives me so much time to experiment and compose,” Greenwood says in the article. “That’s not usually the case in Hollywood, where the soundtrack writers are often very far down the food chain, and are sometimes given only a couple of days to bash out a complete score.”
He also gives the latest non-update on the status of Radiohead: “Well, the Smile are on tour, Ed is making another solo record, Colin is playing bass with Nick Cave – they’ve just done five sold-out nights at the Sydney State theatre – so lots of music is being made. Just not as Radiohead. We’re still talking all the time, we just need to make a plan and get some time together sorted out in advance. I’ve never been very good at that. Too busy dicking around in this studio.”