Today, MGM released the theatrical trailer for Licorice Pizza, an upcoming drama from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson and featuring appearances by, among others, Guardians of the Galaxy star Bradley Cooper and Mystery Men‘s Tom Waits. Anderson, the director of Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood, last directed a film adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice, which starred an army of comic book movie veterans Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Eric Roberts, Benicio Del Toro, and Jena Malone. Licorice Pizza sees Cooper playing Jon Peters, the longtime partner of Barbra Streisand, who is best known in geek circles as the prospective producer of Superman Lives.
Videos by ComicBook.com
In his comedy special Sold Out: A Threevening with Kevin Smith, filmmaker Kevin Smith aired some of the dirty laundry around that movie. Targeting Peters specifically, Smith has frequently related the story that the producer made odd and unreasonable demands that made the movie essentially impossible to make.
Peters didn’t want Superman wearing his red-and-blue costume or having the ability to fly. He also wanted the Man of Steel to go toe-to-toe with a giant spider in the third act, which was called a “Thanagarian Snare Beast” to give it an exterrestrial-vibe.
“This was all out of my mind,” Peters recalled years later. “Thanagarian Snare Beast, I stole it from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. This giant squid that tries to swallow up this submarine. So Superman would fight every tentacle—getting closer and closer to this beak—until he killed it. It would’ve made an amazing sequence! Amazing!”
Licorice Pizza centers on Alana Kane (Alana Haim) and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and falling in love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973. Written and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the film tracks the treacherous navigation of first love.
