Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the greatest cinema auteurs of this generation, as he's made huge, sprawling epics like the Scorsese-influenced Boogie Nights and the melodramatic masterpiece, Magnolia. And from the late 2000s onwards, he focused on period dramas with celebrated actors, and Daniel Day-Lewis even came out of retirement to work with him.
However, the director has one movie that stands out from the rest of his catalog, but not because it’s bad. Instead of being over three hours, Punch Drunk Love is a brisk 90 minutes, and instead of starring three-time Academy Award winners, it stars Adam Sandler, and instead of being overwhelmingly heavy, it’s (kind of) a comedy. Suffice to say, the movie had a fascinating development.
It Was Influenced By A Real-Life Story
Though the main narrative of the movie is the relationship between Barry and Lena, the subplot sees Barry taking advantage of a special offer that comes with buying pudding. The special promotion offers frequent flyer miles with each cup of pudding bought, and Barry bought thousands of pudding cups in return for millions of flyer miles.
This is based on the real-life story of David Phillips, now known as Pudding Man, who received over a million flyer miles after spending more than $3,000 on pudding.
Strange Cinematography Tricks
In one of the scenes when Barry is being followed by a Steadicam, the camera accidentally knocks into a table. The camera panned from Sandler to a piece of the set that was out of focus.
According to Robert Elswit, the cinematographer, Anderson loved the effect so much that they tried recreating it several times by intentionally hitting the camera, and it even made it into the final cut of the film.
Anderson Didn’t Want To Make His Magnolia Follow-Up Longer Than 90 Minutes
Though some think that Magnolia, the 1999 melodramatic epic that clocks in at over three hours, is way too long, there are many cinephiles who will come to its defense. Now, all these years later, even Anderson thinks the movie is too long, and it didn’t even take him long to come to that conclusion.
The director even said in an interview with Marc Maron back in 2015 that he thought the movie was way too long and that he’d “slice it down” if he made it today. And it was the very reason why the director actively set out to make a movie shorter than 90 minutes. In the end, he failed, but only by a short margin, as the final cut of Punch Drunk Love comes in at 94 minutes.
An Early Draft Was Gangster Comedy
Anderson actually wrote a draft of Punch Drunk Love all the way back in 1993, three years before the release of his first movie, Hard Eight, and even longer before his magnum opus, Magnolia. It had a different title, Knuckle Sandwich, and it was more of a gangster comedy with Tarantino-style dialogue.
The screenplay was 140 pages long, much longer than the trim 90-minute final draft, and in it, Barry is a thief and Lena is actually his ex-wife.
Sean Penn Was Set To Star
The final cut of Punch Drunk Love sees the late, great Phillip Seymour Hoffman play Dean Trumbell, a seedy mattress salesman who tries to extort Barry after he phones a sex line. Hoffman plays the role brilliantly and it’s one of Anderson’s most memorable characters, but he wasn’t actually his first choice, even though they had already worked together three times in the past.
In the same Dazed article, it reveals that Sean Penn was pegged to play Trumbell, but it didn’t end up working out. This was the first of a few times that Penn and Anderson tried to collaborate, as the actor was in talks with the director about a role in Inherent Vice, as well. But it’s finally happening, as Penn has a role in Anderson’s upcoming Soggy Bottom.
A Working Title Was Punch Drunk Knuckle Love
Before finally deciding to title the movie Punch Drunk Love, Anderson went through quite a few alternate titles, with one of them being Punch Drunk Knuckle Love. There are a couple of fascinating reasons as to why the movie would be called this.
The first is that it could have been a nod to the original title of the first draft from 1993, Knuckle Sandwich. But the second reason is most likely. After Barry punches the wall during one of his fits of rage, his knuckles are all bloody, and the blood that is stained on his knuckles spells the word "love."
Another Working Title Was "Just Desserts"
Punch Drunk Knuckle Love wasn’t the only working title that Anderson was working with, as he also conjured up Just Desserts.
Given that it’s a saying about somebody getting what they deserve, which happens to multiple characters in the movie, and that the film follows Barry collecting cups of pudding, it’s a juicy pun that actually makes more sense than the movie’s actual title and one that would be expected to be attached to a rom-com starring Adam Sandler.
Adam Sandler Almost Turned The Role Down
Sandler almost turned the movie down, not because of scheduling conflicts, but because he was scared by the scope of Magnolia. According to Indie Wire, Sandler allowed Anderson to write him a movie before actually seeing any of his work and not knowing what it would be like, but upon viewing Magnolia, Sandler had some kind of inferiority complex.
The actor even said of the filmmaker, “This guy is f**cking better than me.” And while Punch Drunk Love is nowhere near as ambitious as either of Anderson’s previous movies, it does deal with serious emotional issues, and Sandler totally pulled it off.
The Movie Exists Thanks To Tom Cruise
According to the same Indie Wire article, the movie wouldn’t actually exist without Tom Cruise. Cruise was a huge fan of Boogie Nights, one of the best behind-the-scenes facts about the movie, which led to him getting a role in Magnolia.
While filming the epic, Anderson discussed how he had always wanted to work with Adam Sandler. As Cruise and Sandler were good friends, Cruise called the comedian up on the phone, simply passed the phone over to Anderson, and history was made.
The Producer Didn’t Want To Cast Sandler
Producers and directors are known to have conflict, as both roles are often fighting for control. And though Anderson was, amazingly, given creative freedom so early in his career with Magnolia, it wasn’t long until he was locking horns with the suits.
According to producer JoAnne Sellar herself, she just wasn’t into Adam Sandler’s comedy at the time and was so confused as to why Anderson wanted to work with him. However, in the end, the director finally managed to convince her, and it ended up being one of Sandler’s best performances.
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