Alexander Payne

Started by MacGuffin, July 02, 2003, 08:30:23 AM

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Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: Kal on August 12, 2017, 12:03:51 PM
I don't know why but there is something about the premise, the cast, this photo, the idea of Alexander Payne + Black Mirror, that really makes me want to see this right away!

http://www.slashfilm.com/downsizing-first-look-matt-damon-shrinks-himself-for-director-alexander-payne/



On a slight tangent, I love Slash Film — and especially their podcast — but they really need to redesign that website.

Robyn

I agree with it sounding good.

And they look so creepy in that picture. I hope it get's creepy. Like, really creepy.


Just Withnail

I finally get to say "they shot this in my neighbourhood!". Parts of it are shot on a boat right outside the northern Norwegian town where I grew up.

wilder

Netflix Wins Alexander Payne's Next Film; Mads Mikkelsen To Star
via Deadline

Netflix has made a deal to finance and release the next film by director Alexander Payne. Sources said the film doesn't yet have a title, but that it is going to star Mads Mikkelsen, who is finalizing his deal. It was described to me as a father/daughter story about a Danish journalist who takes a road-trip with his teenage daughter across the US as he writes a story for a newspaper.

The film will begin shooting next month in Sweden, Denmark and the US. Several distributors bid for Payne's film. Script was written by Erlend Loe (Nord). It will be produced by Bona Fide Productions' Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, and Lizette Jonjic of Zentropa Productions.

The deal gives Netflix a solid awards season film for next year, following a bumper crop of awards films upcoming this fall. Plan is for the film to be released in fall, 2020. Payne has won two Oscars, for writing The Descendants and Sideways (both of which he directed), and he has been a critical favorite since launching his career on Citizen Ruth followed by the Oscar-nominated Election, which has established itself as something of a cult classic. His other films include Downsizing, About Schmidt and Nebraska.

Payne has other projects percolating that include The Menu, a dark satirical comedy he was putting together earlier this year to direct, with Emma Stone and Ralph Fiennes circling to star in a Will Tracy & Seth Reiss-scripted satire that focuses on an eccentric culinary event that is planned for an exclusive island and becomes the hot ticket to die for. I've heard it referred to as a Tarantino-esque take on The One-Percent. That was shopped back in April. But the Netflix film will be his next.


Must be this:

Quote from: wilder on February 10, 2016, 12:31:59 AM
Alexander Payne To Direct Road Trip Flick 'My Saga'
via The Playlist

If you've had an ear tuned to the literary world over the past year or two, you'll likely have heard the name Karl Ove Knausgaard. He's the Norwegian author whose claim to fame is his six volume, no holds barred, dirty laundry and all autobiography "My Struggle," which has made him a sensation, and now he better get ready for some more attention.

Alexander Payne has signed up to direct "My Saga." The road trip movie will be based on Knausgaard's travel writing for New York Times magazine, which saw him journey through the northern United States, retracing the steps the Vikings took through the country. His work was published across two parts which you can read here and here. It seems like a good fit for the filmmaker who has spun previous on-the-road stories in "Sideways" and "Nebraska."

It's all early stages, and there's no writer attached yet, so this will be a while in coming. Next for Payne is "Downsizing" starring Reese Witherspoon, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Sudeikis. Production will begin this year for release in 2017.

wilder

^ Rights issues cancel Alexander Payne-directed Mads Mikkelsen Netflix Film - Deadline




Olivia Colman to Star in HBO, Sky Crime Series 'Landscapers,' Alexander Payne to Direct
via Variety

Olivia Colman has found her next role, and it sounds killer.

The Oscar winner, who is currently one season into her two-season run as Queen Elizabeth II on Netflix's "The Crown," has signed on to lead a crime drama titled "Landscapers" which has received a series order at HBO and Sky. Fellow Academy Award winner Alexander Payne ("The Descendants") is set to direct the series which is being written by Ed Sinclair.

Inspired by real events, "Landscapers" explores the lives of convicted killers Susan (Colman) and Christopher Edwards (casting TBD) and asks how this devoted and mild-mannered couple came to kill Susan's parents and bury them in the back garden of their Mansfield home in the U.K. Their crime remained undiscovered for over a decade.

Per HBO, the series is based on hours of interviews with the real-life figures behind the crime who have always maintained their innocence.

wilder

Alexander Payne Taps His 'Sideways' Star Paul Giamatti For 'The Holdovers'
Deadline

Alexander Payne has set Paul Giamatti to star in The Holdovers, a David Hemingson-scripted film that Mark Johnson is producing. FilmNation will rep international rights and CAA Media Finance will handle domestic as the film is shopped next week in the Cannes Virtual Market. Production will begin early next year in New England.

Payne and Giamatti teamed memorably on the 2004 wine tasting road trip comedy Sideways, which won Payne and Jim Taylor Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Holdovers is a comedy, with the poignancy and grounded characters of past films including Nebraska, The Descendants and Sideways.

Giamatti plays a universally disliked teacher at the prep school Deerfield Academy. His non-fans include his students, fellow faculty and headmaster who all find his pomposity and rigidity exasperating. With no family and nowhere to go over Christmas holiday in 1970, Paul remains at school to supervise students unable to journey home. After a few days, only one student holdover remains — a trouble-making 15-year-old named Angus, a good student undermined by bad behavior that always threatens to get him expelled. Joining Paul and Angus is Deerfield's head cook Mary—an African American woman who caters to sons of privilege and whose own son was recently lost in Vietnam. These three very different shipwrecked people form an unlikely Christmas family, sharing comic misadventures during two very snowy weeks in New England, and realizing that none of them are beholden to their past.

"I came across a writing sample for a pilot set in a prep school by David Hemingson," Payne told Deadline. "I called him, told him the idea and he jumped at it. Ever since I worked with Paul in Sideways, I've wanted to work with him again, and this role is tailor made for him. I continue to think now as I did then... I hate to use the term the finest actor of his generation because there are so many wonderful actors. But when I worked with him on Sideways I was astounded by his range. As a director you want actors who can make even bad dialogue work, and he can do that. He can just do anything. I think it's a matter of time before he gets his Oscar."

He becomes the fulcrum for the unlikely trio.

"The story focuses on one kid in particular, a real smart ass troublemaker, who's 15 years old and a good kid underneath," Payne said. "His widowed mother has recently married a rich guy and she wants to use this vacation as her honeymoon. At the last minute she breaks the kid's heart and tells him he has to stay at the school. Selected this year [to watch the stranded students ] is Paul Giamatti, this curmudgeonly walleyed disliked history teacher. Eventually, the other three or four boys find other places to go and it becomes a two-hander, but actually a three-hander because of the cook who stays behind and it becomes about the adventures of these three over a very snowy Christmas holiday in New England."

wilder

Reese Witherspoon to Star in 'Election' Sequel 'Tracy Flick Can't Win' at Paramount+
Variety
12/8/22

Reese Witherspoon is reprising her role as go-getter Tracy Flick in "Tracy Flick Can't Win," a sequel to the 1999 political comedy "Election."

Alexander Payne, who co-wrote and directed the original film, is returning for the follow-up, which is set to debut on Paramount's streaming service, Paramount+. In addition to directing, Payne will write the movie adaptation with Jim Taylor.

In "Election," based on the 1998 novel by Tom Perrotta, Witherspoon portrayed an ambitious, Type-A student whose social studies teacher (played by Matthew Broderick) attempts to sabotage her campaign to become school president. Although it wasn't a box office draw, the movie was nominated at the Oscars for best adapted screenplay, while Witherspoon landed attention at the Golden Globes in the best actress race.

The sequel, based on Perrotta's follow-up novel that published earlier this year, picks up with Tracy in adulthood as she continues to struggle to fight her way to the top at work. She's the assistant principal at a public high school in suburban New Jersey, but she sets her sights on the top job as her boss announces plans to retire.

In the New York Times' review, critic Molly Young described the follow-up story as "even more piercing than its predecessor" and praised Perrotta's characters as "exquisitely drawn." Meanwhile, Vox's Constance Grady calls Tracy Flick "a Rorschach test for how we think about women, ambition, and the power dynamics of sex. "

Witherspoon will produce the film with Lauren Neustadter for Hello Sunshine, a Candle Media company. Additional producers include Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa of Bona Fide Productions. Perrotta is executive producing.