I love Paul Thomas Anderson. The writer-director has just a few films under his belt, but they include Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love. He has a red-hot track record so far in his burgeoning career, which makes the following news all the more invigorating.

According to Hollywood Reporter, his next project will be producing and directing There Will Be Blood, loosely based on the controversial 1927 Upton Sinclair novel “Oil!” The period drama, picked up by Paramount Classics and Miramax Films, will weigh in with a budget of just over $25 million.

Better yet, Daniel Day-Lewis is set to star. He’ll play a prospector who buys the oil rights to a family’s ranch, unleashes a major problem, realizes the American dream, and is promptly destroyed by it. The story turns into a cautionary tale of greed and faith.

Sinclair’s book turned heads (and stomachs) with its grueling expose of the seamy side of the drilling business in Southern California, when it paralleled the effects of the gold rush. According to Paramount specialty division president John Lesher, "It's an ambitious film and a compelling, relevant story about family, greed, religion and oil. Paul is an incredible talent, exactly the kind of filmmaker the new division wants to be in business with."

Shooting will begin in Texas and New Mexico in the middle of May.