Ever wonder what “Sideways” director Alexander Payne has been up to in the last five-odd years since that Oscar-nominated indie has come out? We sure have. In fact last summer we did a piece asking where 6 important indie auteurs had disappeared to and Payne was on our list.
As noted back then, Payne did contribute the the closing, feel-good vignette in”Paris Je T’aime,” in 2007 and apparently did some re-write work on “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry,” but there’s been no feature-length since 2004.
Jeffrey Wells may have uncovered what he’s up to. Wells reports that a Hollywood Elsewhere reader, who presumably (and hopefully) has some insider knowledge, writes in to say Payne’s next project is apparently called, “Downsizing,” and may feature, Sacha Baron Cohen, Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon. Sounds like some pretty solid casting to us, but it’s all evidently in the preliminary stages.
“Nothing is locked down at this juncture, not even script, certainly not cast,” Wells’ source says. “[Payne is] still working on screenplay, although he’s close.”
Wells than asks, where does that leave “Fork In The Road,” a Dublin-based romantic drama based on Dennis Hamill‘s 2000 book of the same name. The adaptation is by Kerry Williamson. IMDB has Payne listed as director-producer.”
We’ll be totally honest. We’ve never even heard of “Fork In The Road,” (or at least don’t remember it) but it surely wasn’t on his IMDB page, or even IMDB pro page last summer. Whenever it was announced, we must have been sleeping or had our heads up our asses; totally possible. Either way, it’s good to hear that Payne is working on a new project and hopefully coming back to full-length features soon. We didn’t love “Sideways,” but he’s still a unique and welcome voice to have around.
