A battle after another director Paul Thomas Anderson secretly rewritten two major films

“One battle after the other” is the 10th film by Paul Thomas Anderson as a writer / director. Most of his films have been widely celebrated by criticism, and many of them were oscar darlings; Anderson’s films have received 28 Oscar nominations and three victories to date. Of these 28 nominations, nine of them were for its actors. The director’s frank style, extended ideas and love of physical celluloid marked it as one of the most important filmmakers of its generation.

Anderson is one of those rare filmmakers who only directs his own scripts; He has never taken concerts as a director for the rental and has never written his own short films and video projects. Curiously, he even has an episode of credit writing for “Saturday Night Live”, the only script of his did not direct. Well, as far as we know.

Speaking with Dazed, Anderson revealed that his writing credits were more varied than we thought. It seems that the filmmaker – as is common in Hollywood – has sometimes made punch and rewritings for other great Hollywood productions. Although most films generally have a handful of writers credited as much as possible, many films, especially gigantic blockbusters, nevertheless employ scribes teams throughout their development. These punch-up editors are generally not credited (due to WGA rules, contracts and other stipulations), but some of your favorite writers probably have much longer curriculum vitae than their IMDB pages suggest.

In particular, Anderson told Dazed that he had made the scenario on the biopic of Ridley Scott “Napoleon” and the excellent drama of Martin Scorsese “Killers of the Flower Moon”, which both published in 2023. The scenario of the first is credited with David Scarpa, while the latter are credited to Scorse and Eric Roth. Regarding his own contributions, Anderson admitted: “I love to contribute in any way possible if someone tries help.”

There had been rumors circulating for some time that Anderson had secretly contributed to the scripts for “Napoleon” and “Killers of the Flower Moon”, but now it’s official. It seems that Scott and Martin contacted him, asking him for a little help to define their scripts. Anderson wanted to do it, because he now worked with the tracks of the two films. Joaquin Phoenix played Napoleon, but he also played in Anderson’s films “The Master” and “Inherent Vice”. Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio played the Callow, Greedy Ernest in “Killers of the Flower Moon” and now plays in “One Battle after the other.

“These two things were one thing with Joaquin, one thing with Leo, and obviously with Marty and Ridley,” said Anderson. “It is always a privilege to say:” Let me tell you my thoughts on the script. “”

His contributions were not so modest, at least not on “Napoleon”. As Indiewire reported in 2024, Anderson was brought to rewrite this film specifically because Phoenix hated the script and would only remain on production if Anderson was specifically hired to “repair” it. It seems that Anderson’s ideas gave Scott and Phoenix a hearty little laugh, and the film was rewritten to Phoenix’s taste.

As for the “killers of the moon of flowers”, there were no additional reports on the measurement of Anderson’s contributions. We will have to believe that he simply offered his reflections on the script.

“One battle after another” is currently playing in theaters.