SHITTIEST NEWS OF THE YEAR: THE MASTER POSTPONED

I wish I had the words to describe how disappointing this is to me.

This is just a major bummer. I thought it was back on track and everything.

Yeah, worst news in a long while.

I trust PT artistically at this point - if he aint feelin' it I don't want to see it. If it happens it'll be because he's got the passion back - no point in him forcing it.

Yeah, from the quotes it seems like this is a "PTA didn't feel it was up to snuff" thing, not a "the financial backing fell through" thing. I'm definitely bummed, but I have to respect the man.

Weeks ago I read a long Wired article about AA and the story resembles the one quoted above...

FUCK

If it is for artistic reasons I respect that but that's not much comfort to me right now, I was SO excited for this. Maybe it'll still happen someday.

Honestly, with the 900 movies Renner's been attached to in the past weeks, I'd forgotten about this one. But, yeah, now I remember, and it's a sucker punch to the gut. I don't want to wait too much for another PTA film.

Damnit. Just... damnit.

Well, this blows. Maybe if PTA would agree to make this in 3-D... (sarcasm)

Maybe I'm misremembering things but wasn't this film supposed to be at least obliquely about Hubbard and scientology?

In that case I'd look for a horde of lawyers as the cause for the cancellation rather than financial or artistic reasons.

I'd imagine it's more along the lines of how Boogies Nights is "the John Holmes story." I mean, it is and it isn't. Certainly not enough to bring lawsuit over.

I think PTA is definitely smart and aware enough to work around the famously litigious cult.

It is and it isn't probably won't cut it with scientologists. They'e pretty draconian with this stuff.

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This wasn't really on my radar, but all the same I'd have liked to have seen another PTA movie sooner rather than later, so this is unfortunate news. Hopefully he can do another project for now and return to MASTER in the future. The cast may move on, but good scripts don't just evaporate. To be completely honest (and I know that I'll probably be alone in this), I find Mr Hoffman is an irritating screen presence and he's not an actor whose work I routinely enjoy. In the right role he can be aces, but more often than not I find myself resenting him. On that note, perhaps if the MASTER moves forward in the future it could do so with a cast that I'd have more interest in watching

PS Just to be clear, I know that many people were excited about this and my comments represent only myself and my own personal tastes.

Yeah but doesn't matter what they think. It matters what the courts think.

However I'd imagine that Scientology could make things very difficult for a film if they wanted to. They have enormous reach in Hollywood. When my mom wrote for TIME in the 70s, they were sent packages full of live poisonous snakes after they did a scientology expose.

It's a PTA movie. A prestige film. Not likely to be a runaway financial success even under the best circumstances. I don't think a studio, especially today, would be willing to risk a legal struggle that could be as expensive as the movie's marketing budget. And scientology is not an opponent you, unless you're Germany, are likely to simply brush away. At least not for something as high profile as this.

Perhaps so. But, going by what we know, it seems that THE MASTER stalled not because of the threat of lawsuits, but because Anderson couldn't find his way through with the material.

It's his script, his story, so if he feels that the story isn't working, I have to say that I'd rather Anderson back off instead of go ahead with something he doesn't have full faith in. It's completely possible that he could have found his way in rehearsals or in principal photography, or hell, in the editing suite, but if it really is a story issue, I understand completely.

Scientology is notorious for throwing lawsuits at people they don't like, for no better reason than they don't like them. It's actually part of their holy scripture to do so--no joke. The idea is that you bury people under legal bills, and it doesn't matter whether the lawsuits are frivolous or not, they won't be able to pay for it.

And of course, there are an awful lot of scientologists in Hollywood, so lawsuits may not even be necessary--it could just be a matter of a couple of people with clout making some "suggestions" in the upper echelons of power.

The frustrating thing is that Scientologists are pretty literal folks, and probably wouldn't pay any attention to a movie about some generic cult--Bowfinger got away with "MindHead", after all. (Though the conspiracy-minded might say that that movie's status as a career-killer for most of the people involved might have something to do with this? Maybe?) But the fact that PTA and others overtly linked "The Master" to Scientology might have called unwanted attention to it. To be totally honest, I was expecting this project to run into friction, and I was surprised that it seemed to be going ahead at all.

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Scientology is an organization that has enough money to keep those courts thinking.

Yeah, I'm aware of all that, of course. I'm just being idealistic (and also likely unrealistic).

PTA is presumably "friendly" with one of the main proponents though, maybe he could get his blessing?

Why did this turn into a "OMG THE FUCKING SCIENTOLOGISTS KILLED IT. I HATE THEM!" thread? We have no idea why it got postponed.

Oh and Hoffman is irritating? I can't even explain how much I disagree with this.