One Battle After Another writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has revealed that his acclaimed film re-shot its climactic sequence last minute.
An adaptation of Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, the star-studded movie sees Leonardo DiCaprio play Bob Ferguson, an ex-revolutionary who has to rescue his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) from a corrupt military official.
Speaking with Rolling Stone, Anderson explained that one of the final scenes of the film, and arguably the one with the highest emotional impact, originally looked very different.
(Spoilers for One Battle After Another ahead, so stop reading now if you haven't seen the movie just yet.)
In one of the final moments of One Battle After Another, Bob and Willa reunite in a chase in the hills, filmed in the southernmost tip of California, "near the Arizona border", explained Anderson.
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"I think that we had done a version where, as soon as they see each other, they hugged, and we watched it the next day in dailies. And it occurred to me, hang on, there's more here," Anderson recalled.
The filmmaker said they ultimately reshot it to get a more powerful sequence, and it ended up being the right call.
"I think what we got is much stronger. Coming up with the situation for Willa, where she is finally able to take agency over a situation - to turn the tables, be the aggressor, take the high ground - this became very exciting to us," he said.
"Then the next part is simply: Who kills who, and how? Somebody's gotta shoot somebody else, and somebody's gotta get outta there!
"Through the scouting and rehearsing, we really discovered that the biggest moment was [Willa] being put into the position of having to pay for the sins of her mom and her dad. And the next thing that came to us was, 'Well, if she knows who she is, the biggest question [to Bob] is: Who the hell are you?' And the answer to that is…"
"I'm your dad," DiCaprio chimed in.
Anderson said they "didn't really have that in place" when they started filming.
"These kinds of things came from being out there, and practicing and playing and discovering stuff with them," he said.
"But we'd filmed enough and knew these people well enough that we knew something had to happen, and we were lucky enough to find what I think is a terrific solution to the whole thing."
Released on 26 September, the film also stars Teyana Taylor as Bob's ex and Willa's mum Perfidia, as well as Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and Regina Hall.
One Battle After Another is out in cinemas now.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times and Digital Spy.
Her beats are horror films and period dramas, especially if fronted by queer women. She can argue why Scream is the best slasher in four languages (and a half).
