Joaquin Phoenix and Paul Thomas Anderson are set to reunite on Inherent Vice, an adaptation of a noirish Los Angeles-set novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The pair collaborated to rousing effect on The Master, Anderson's acclaimed tale of a cult leader and his muse. Phoenix is currently Oscar-nominated for his role in the film.

Published in 2009, Inherent Vice tells the tale of Larry "Doc" Sportello, a pot-smoking detective who is hired to investigate a kidnap plot. The plot plays out a in turbulent late-60s LA inhabited by Manson family acolytes and "counter-subversive" agents at the LAPD. The New Yorker described the book as "a novel in which paranoia is less a political or metaphysical state than a by-product of smoking too much weed".

The film, written and directed by Anderson, will be produced by Annapurna Pictures, with production due to start later this year. Phoenix is reportedly in final talks to star as Sportello, stepping in as a last minute replacement for Robert Downey Jr, who has dropped out for undisclosed reasons.

Promoting The Master at last year's Venice film festival, Anderson told the Guardian that he had tried to recruit Phoenix for several of his earlier films. "I asked him to be in Boogie Nights, I asked him to be in There Will Be Blood, I've wanted to work with him for the longest time," he said. Discussing Phoenix's gifts as a performer, he said, "There's so much energy around him, he's like dynamite … he's thrilling, sometimes a bit maddening."

Phoenix will next be seen in James Gray's Lowlife, a historical drama about immigrants in 1900s New York. The movie co-stars Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Renner.