Writer and director Alexander Payne is reuniting with Paul Giamatti for The Holdovers, more details here.
Paul Giamatti is one of those actors you can drop into any film and his presence will improve it immeasurably. From the farcical frolics of Big Fat Liar to the insanity of Shoot Em Up, Giamatti’s range as an actor is really quite something,
It was 2004’s Sideways (pictured), though, that really made people sit up and take notice. Directed by Alexander Payne and based on the novel by Rex Pickett, the film sees Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church play wine enthusiasts who undertake a road trip through Santa Barbara to celebrate upcoming nuptials. The script won Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Now, Payne and Giamatti are reuniting for The Holdovers, the rights to which are currently being sold in the biggest deal ever made at the Toronto Film Festival, reported to be worth $30 million.
According to Deadline, the film will see Giamatti play ” a universally disliked teacher at prep school Barton 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 troublemaking 17-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 recently was 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 is beholden to their past”
Payne directed the film from a script by David Hemingson. The film is already finished, with the studio taking the risk of waiting until production was complete before securing distribution.
The Holdovers will be released towards the end of 2023, we’ll keep you updated as we hear more.
