I am – Hercules!!

Paul Thomas Anderson (“There Will Be Blood”) is hatching a new movie to star Phillip Seymour Hoffman, an actor with whom he collaborated on “Sydney,” “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia” and “Punch-Drunk Love.”

Hoffman, says Thursday morning’s Variety, will play “The Master”:

a charismatic intellectual who hatches a faith-based organization that begins to catch on in America in 1952. The core is the relationship between the Master and Freddie, a twentysomething drifter who becomes the leader's lieutenant. As the faith begins to gain a fervent following, Freddie finds himself questioning the belief system he has embraced, and his mentor.

Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1952, but there may be scores of other new religions I’m not thinking of that began to catch on in America in the 1950s.

The project, which has not yet received greenlight, is currently set up at Universal.

Paul Thomas Anderson has never directed a bad movie, and hasn’t directed a movie of any stripe since 2007’s “Blood,” which brought Daniel Day Lewis a best-actor Oscar and garnered Anderson Oscar nominations for best director, best adapted screenplay and best picture.

Find all of Variety’s story on the matter here.

Find an examination of the "South Park" examination of Scientology here.