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Just like with About Schmidt, Sideways followed the prestige platform release pattern to a T. Astoundingly, Sideways never earned more than $6.3 million in a single weekend, and yet its total topped $71 million domestically. Tagging on another modest, $38 million from overseas, Sideways was a huge win for Payne and Fox Searchlight. And though it almost goes without saying, being another small-scale character study, Sideways had a quaint budget of $16 million. Without a critical miss on his resume and with two straight Oscar-bait successes, Payne's next entry will arrive with higher expectations than any of his previous films.


The Descendants

After a long hiatus from feature filmmaking (he did direct a vignette for Paris, Je t'aime as well as the pilot for Hung on Showtime), Payne has finally started shooting his follow-up to Sideways. The Descendants is, like Sideways, coming from Fox Searchlight and is also budgeted at $15 million; it's fairly clear that Payne is going to be sticking with his trend of small-scale, honest storytelling. Presumably, The Descendants will see George Clooney embrace the persona he built by playing Ryan Bingham in Up in the Air, as Payne will likely have him taking some sort of existential journey.

The one-line, officially released synopsis of the film is a bit vague, but Payne's films are not easily summarized in a single sentence anyway. The book on which it is based focuses on a wealthy Hawaiian attorney who learns that his not-so-faithful wife, after suffering from a boat-racing accident, has been sent into a coma. Clooney must then must work to repair his relationship with his children, while also setting out to confront the man with whom his wife was having an affair. The book is described as a tragicomedy of sorts, and, as such, suits Payne's filmmaking sensibilities.

Also of note, The Descendants will be Payne's first feature that he co-wrote with someone other than his writing partner Jim Taylor (though Taylor is listed as a producer).

Payne also has several projects in development, most notably a project called Downsizing, which was initially planned as his follow-up to Sideways. With Giamatti in the lead role again, Downsizing (also based on a novel) has a description more befitting a Spike Jonze production – it follows a man who shrinks himself to the size of a "little person" in order to have an easier existence. If Downsizing does get off the ground at some point (apparently cost was an issue), it will be interesting to see Payne stretch outside of his comfort zone a little bit with material that is less grounded in reality. In the meantime, it wont be so bad to see Payne and Clooney team up for another entry in the tried and true. Like other Payne entries, expect a film without a real antagonist – as in Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways, the protagonist is always his own worst enemy. Expect painfully relatable characters and story lines, and expect some touching comedy. But don't expect anything especially new.

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