Latest in Alexander Payne

Paramount Pictures has announced that Tracy Flick Can’t Win — a sequel to Alexander Payne’s cult classic 1999 comedy Election — is being made for Paramount+. Payne is returning as director, with the original film’s lead Reese Witherspoon to produce and reprise her starring role. Based on Tom Perrotta…

EXCLUSIVE: The biggest deal ever made at Toronto will be on a film that is not on the Toronto Film Festival roster. I’m hearing that Focus Features is tying up a $30 million worldwide rights deal with Miramax’s Bill Block and CAA Media Finance for The Holdovers, after a discreet screening here for buyers held Sunday…

As they say here north of the border: Time to drop the puck on the 2022 Toronto Film Festival. The weather is beautiful, and they’ve cordoned off King Street from the Lightbox to Roy Thomson Hall. People are getting their bearings, most not wearing masks in the open air. This is a sight better than last year, when the…

EXCLUSIVE: Quiver Distribution has acquired North American rights to the dramedy Small Town Wisconsin, starring David Sullivan (Sharp Objects), Bill Heck (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Kristen Johnston (3rd Rock from the Sun), Tanya Fischer (Life on Mars) and Cooper J. Friedman (9-1-1: Lone Star), slating it for wide…

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy winner Carrie Preston (The Good Fight) has signed on to star alongside Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in the Miramax film The Holdovers, from two-time Oscar winner and seven-time nominee Alexander Payne (Nebraska, The Descendants). The dramedy written by Whiskey Cavalier creator David Hemingson…

EXCLUSIVE: Da’Vine Joy Randolph is set to join Paul Giamatti in Alexander Payne’s next feature film, The Holdovers. Miramax landed worldwide rights to the film last summer with Payne on board to direct. David Hemingson is writing and producing with Mark Johnson and Bill Block also producing. Production is set to start…

EXCLUSIVE: Miramax has acquired worldwide rights to The Holdovers, the Alexander Payne-directed film that reteams him with Sideways star Paul Giamatti. David Hemingson wrote the script, Mark Johnson is producing, and the film is now greenlighted for a January start date in New England. "The vision of Alexander Payne…

EXCLUSIVE: 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 in the Cannes Virtual Market next week. Production will begin early next…

EXCLUSIVE: Will Sharpe, who starred in Netflix and BBC drama Giri/Haji and directed quirky British comedy Flowers, is taking over directing Olivia Colman drama series Landscapers. Sharpe replaces Alexander Payne, who was initially set as the director of the HBO and Sky co-production, which is produced by Chernobyl…

In a recent social media post, Rose McGowan wrote that filmmaker Alexander Payne engaged in a sexual act with her while she was 15 years old. Payne today responds with a firm denial in this guest column. He will have no further comment on the matter, he said. *** Rose McGowan and I have always had very cordial…

(Updated with more information) Rose McGowan has accused The Descendants and Sideways director Alexander Payne of predatory behavior. The actress shared her alleged experience with Payne in a chain of tweets Sunday and Monday, recounting spending time with the two-time Oscar winner when she was 15 years old. “You sat…

EXCLUSIVE: Alexander Payne has attached to direct a re-imagining of Babette’s Feast, the 1988 Oscar-winning Danish Film which Gabriel Axel wrote and directed from a story by Karen Blixen. The project was set up by Unique Features, the production shingle that former New Line founder Bob Shaye created with his late…