George Clooney and Alexander Payne would seem to be a match made in heaven – so we welcome today’s news that Clooney is in talks to star in Payne’s latest movie, the comedy drama, The Descendants. We have only this to ask: what the hell took you guys so long?
Clooney would play a wealthy landowner who, in a desperate bid to keep his family together, takes his two young daughters on a trip to meet his wife’s lover. So, as ever with Payne, it’s all too human and all too complicated.
The Fox Searchlight movie will be Payne’s first since Sideways, back in 2004 (so again we have to ask: what the hell took you so long?) and, curiously, it’ll be the first time he’s directed someone else’s screenplay, with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash adapting Kaui Hart Hemmings’ novel.
Filming is scheduled to begin in February on what will surely be a wryly funny and moving Oscar-botherer.