According to The Hollywood Reporter, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson is in advanced talks to produce and direct There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a turn-of-the-century Texas oil prospector in the early days of the oil business. The sprawling period piece, which Anderson has spent several years writing, is loosely adapted from Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil!

Budgeted at more than $25 million, Blood will be jointly financed and distributed by Paramount's specialty films division and Miramax Films, according to Paramount specialty division president John Lesher.