There will be...milkshakes
April 10, 2008 5:38 AM

What is the origin of the movie title "There Will Be Blood"? [no spoilers in OP]

I'm not talking about how "There Will Be Blood" fits into the plot of the movie; I'm talking about the actual phrase itself. I know that it was used as a tagline for Saw II back in 2005, but that's it. I've tried googling it, but the only thing that comes back are sites related to the movie.
posted by Lucinda to Media & Arts (9 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
From here. May not be entirely an answer...

Why did you choose a different title for the movie?

Paul Thomas Anderson: I changed the title because at the end of the day there's not enough of the book probably left to feel like it's a proper adaptation of the book. I wrote the title down and it looked really good. (...) Somebody decided instead of building vacation homes it was time to start drilling for oil, and they struck oil. So this community went absolutely mad. When Sinclair witnessed this community trying to get this lease together, he said he witnessed human greed laid bare. He saw these people go absolutely crazy. He knew what he wanted to write about. And that's what started him on the road of that story. We just picked up where he left off. At the core of the story was the drive and ambition, not only from this independent oil man but also from the people that he was supposedly getting the better of in leasing their land.
posted by opsin at 5:58 AM on April 10, 2008


There was also a comment in an interview he did over at the A.V. Club about how it could have wound up being called 'There Will Be A Morally Unambiguous Ending', so I think it really is about it being prescient more than anything.
posted by opsin at 6:00 AM on April 10, 2008


Actually, here's a clearer phrasing of what I am asking:

Has the phrase "There Will Be Blood" ever been used other than as the title of PT Anderson's movie and as a tagline for Saw II? It sounds like it's Biblical or something.
posted by Lucinda at 7:29 AM on April 10, 2008


Princess Bride

Inigo: There will be blood tonight!

I don't know if that's where he got it from, but it's what I always think of when I hear the title.
posted by odragul at 7:44 AM on April 10, 2008


Exodus 7:19b: "and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone."
posted by junkbox at 7:58 AM on April 10, 2008




Re: Exodus 7:19, the King James version, states less dramatically, "there may be blood."
posted by Exchequer at 10:07 AM on April 10, 2008


Doh, I see what you meant. I've had far too little sleep the last couple of days!
posted by opsin at 3:05 PM on April 10, 2008


It's also(annoyingly) the tag line for Saw 2.

"Oh yes, there will be blood"

and it's not like you could have walked around in LA without seeing this poster.
posted by M Edward at 7:10 PM on April 10, 2008


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