To say that people have been greatly anticipating P.T. Anderson’s follow-up to There Will Be Blood would be something of an understatement. Last we heard, he had written a script and was getting ready to start production on a movie tentatively titled The Master. It was described as a religious drama set in the ’50s about a faith-based organization called The Cause that begins to catch on in America. Anderson had lined up a cast that included Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeremy Renner and Reese Witherspoon, and a report back in July indicated that he would start shooting in August. Apparently that didn’t happen, however, and unfortunately now it looks like the project may be all but dead in the water.

The Playlist tells us that the latest print issue of Total Film has an update on The Master courtesy of Jeremy Renner. He apparently told the magazine that it has been “postponed indefinitely”:

“I was really bummed about that… It really kind of stalled because when we were rehearsing — Phil, Paul and myself — we kept coming up against a wall that we couldn’t overcome. Or at least Paul couldn’t overcome.”

As we heard previously, Universal had passed on the project, which meant that Anderson was forced to find his own financing for it. River Road (Brokeback Mountain, Into the Wild, The Tree of Life) had apparently stepped in to help out, but it’s unclear if they are still involved at this point. Considering that the religious organization in the movie bears some similarity to Scientology, it seems like a potentially controversial film that no one wants to go near. Still, you’d think that with all the acclaim that P.T. Anderson has built up over the years, surely someone out there must be willing to take a chance on it? Please? Is this a bad sign if a guy like P.T. Anderson just can’t get a movie made anymore?