Alexander Payne's Downsizing (Matt Damon)

[kvz5]

http://deadline.com/2014/11/matt-damon-alexander-payne-downsizing-1201274509/

EXCLUSIVE: Matt Damon will star in Downsizing, the next film from Alexander Payne. I’m told that Damon will take on this film, which is set at 2oth Century Fox, and that it knocks him out of the China-set Legendary Pictures epic The Great Wall, which will be helmed by Zhang Yimou. Downsizing was scripted by Payne with Jim Taylor, with whom Payne shared the adapted screenplay Oscar for Sideways. They are partners in Ad Hominem Enterprises, and their scripting collaborations also include About Schmidt.

Details on this project aren’t plentiful, but here’s a logline: Pic is a social satire in which a guy realizes he would have a better life if he were to shrink himself. Payne most recently directed the superb Nebraska.

Next up for Damon is the Ridley Scott-directed The Martian, and he also is back in the loop with Universal and Paul Greengrass for another installment of The Bourne Identity. Damon’s repped by WME, Payne by CAA.

 

[:eek:]

Christoph Waltz will join Matt Damon and Reese Witherspoon in Alexander Payne’s Downsizing movie

Two-time Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz has, according to Variety, joined the cast of Alexander Payne’s Downsizing movie. The satirical sci-fi tale is set to be headlined by fellow Academy Award winners Reese Witherspoon and Matt Damon with a supporting cast that includes Alec Baldwin (The Departed, “30 Rock&#8221, Neil Patrick Harris (Gone Girl, “How I Met Your Mother&#8221, Jason Sudeikis (We’re the Millers, Horrible Bosses) and Hong Chau (Treme, Inherent Vice).

Downsizing tells the high concept story of a man (Damon) and his wife (Witherspoon) who, deciding that their lives have gotten out of hand, decide to voluntarily have themselves shrunk down. Unfortunately for the man, his wife backs out at the last minute. There’s no word yet on what character Waltz is playing, but check back for updates as they become available.
Payne, who most recently directed Nebraska, scripted the Downsizing movie with Jim Taylor, with whom he also wrote Sideways and About Schmidt. Plans call for Downsizing to hit the big screen sometime in late 2017.
Christoph Waltz, who took home Oscars for his performances in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, most recently menaced Daniel Craig’s James Bond as the big bad of last year’s SPECTRE. Coming up, Waltz is part of the ensemble cast of David Yates’ The Legend of Tarzan. Based on the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs jungle hero, The Legend of Tarzan also stars Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson and Djimon Hounsou and is slated to hit theaters on July 1, 2016

 

[Doctor Jones]

It's Payne. How could you not be in?

 

[Fallen Angel]

Kristen Wiig Replacing Reese Witherspoon in 'Downsizing' http://thr.cm/CJWmSK

Wiig is replacing Reese Witherspoon, who left the Paramount project because of scheduling issues.

 

[Fallen Angel]

http://thr.cm/vrvItH

Paramount has also set a release date for Alexander Payne's next film, Downsizing, starring Matt Damon.

Downsizing will open nationwide on Dec. 22, 2017.

 

[Muze]

so is it Ant-Man with more humor or less?

 

[Pink Ranger]

I think Ant-Man was more like a classic science fiction adventure. The vibe I get from this is it's more like absurdist social satire, like How To Get Ahead In Advertising or Being John Malkovich.

 

[terry78]

It's about being small in a big world.

 

[samsnee]

Looks like they showed some footage

http://io9.gizmodo.com/we-saw-10-minutes-of-alexander-paynes-surprising-scifi-1793753129

It starts with a group of people sitting in a studio audience. They’re all looking at what appears to be a kind of dollhouse. Out of the dollhouse walks a little person. Like, really little. About 6 inches tall. It’s a character played by Neil Patrick Harris and he’s there to sell these people on the idea of downsizing: shrinking down to a size where life is the same but everything is worth more.

His pitch goes like this: As a small person, you can have everything you ever dreamed. That’s because everything you own or consume is so much smaller. Plus, you’re saving the world from overpopulation and excessive waste problems. It’s actually an environmental issue, he says. He shows off his mega-mansion, which is the aforementioned doll house, and it opens it up to reveal his wife, played by Laura Dern. She tells him about her day, that she went jewelry shopping. She bought a diamond bracelet, earrings, and a necklace. “How much did that cost me?” he asks. “83 dollars,” she says. “83 dollars!” he exclaims. “That’s the cost food for two months.” Everyone laughs.

Damon and Wiig’s characters were in the audience, and they then meet with a lady who explains to them how it works. She says that if they choose to move to LeisureLand—the name of the world where everyone is small—they’d be set for life. After all, they’d have $152,000 after selling all their assets and settling all debt. Now, to live off the rest of your life, that doesn’t sound like a lot. But money goes so much further when you’re small—it’s more like $15.2 million dollars.

So they do it. They’re told the procedure will take about five hours, and in that time they have to be separated. They say their goodbyes and go off. We follow Damon as he goes to the men’s facility, and it starts with a montage of men getting their heads shaved. Very Full Metal Jacket. But it goes beyond that. Eyebrows shaved. Legs shaved. Privates shaved. Everything. Next, they go to a huge pod of dentists to have anything unnatural taken out of their mouth. Then about 20 men are rolled into a huge secure room. They’re knocked out, and once all the doctors are happy, they lock them in and turn the room on. This is when the actual downsizing happens.

Once it’s done, nurses go in and scoop up the now mini-men in spatulas. They transfer them to another location where mini-doctors will now take care of them. There’s a great shot of a regular sized doctor talking to mini-doctors, and it’s just funny and weird.

Damon’s character wakes up and the nurse welcomes him to LeisureLand. She says, “I bet you’re hungry” and leaves the room. She then comes back with crackers that are literally the size of her entire body. To a normal person, this is just a cracker, but to a small person, it’s massive. He’s shocked and she reveals that she’s joking. “People love that,” she says and goes to get him a regular sized meal. And then the footage ended.

 

[nite-owl]

 

[terry78]

Heh, cool.

 

[nite-owl]

[YT]iTxTcFWXimA[/YT]

 

[David H.]

I keep forgetting this isn't Kaufman.

 

[nite-owl]

[YT]mZecDLSra28[/YT]

 

[Doctor Jones]

Looks fantastic and like another winner from Payne.

 

[terry78]

I likes it.

 

[Marvolo]

I'm curious to see how the film show this "downsized" community dealing with bugs, dogs, lizards, cats, spiders, scorpions, snakes, normal storms, hail, or somebody accidentally kicking a soccer ball through their "downsized" community.

 

[Defacto]

^^ That's what I want to know too. And how does the logistics and the economy of it all works. How do their regular dollars turn into thousands or hundreds when downsized. Doesn't the procedure to downsizw already cost something? And indeed how do they deal with bugs? One lice can easily suck them dry!

 

[Filmfan93]

Saw the trailer for this yesterday.

Don't know what to think. Looks funny, but at the same time forgettable.

 

[guitarsingerguy]

So this is kinda like, "Honey, I Shrunk My Dignity"?

 

[Rjones1325]

Whenever Alexander Payne comes out with a new film, I am overly ecstatic to see what new concept he and Taylor conjured up. Now we have “Downsizing” which has to be the most creative film from Payne and longtime writing partner Jim Taylor and yet…..its the worst film they’ve ever done.

The first thirty minutes is amazing where we are introduced to Paul (Damon) and his wife Audrey (Wiig) who are struggling to move and in desperate need to do so because neither of them are happy. The form of communication that is present when one reveals they are going to Downsize himself is clever for people to start acting as if they are dying or retiring. Because this is a permanent process, it makes sense to have people behave this way.*

The sequence of how Paul undergoes the process of Downsizing where they treat it like a hospital appointment has to be one of the most innovative scenes I’ve ever seen all year. It's so damn creative on par with anything you would expect from a film from Pixar. I don’t want to explain how the scene plays out but its the ultimate highlight of the film and it's a mesmerizing experience that makes you curious onto what was the inspiration that went into creating that sequence.

Whatever creativity the film displays in the first thirty minutes completely fades away right when Matt Damon’s Paul becomes five inches tall. By that point, the story just becomes confused with what it's trying to tell. If I was to describe this in Malick terms, the movie starts off as strong as "Into the Badlands" but soon after its first act, it becomes "Knight of Cups." It never ceases to be entertaining for the comedy is the main thing holding your interest, but it just becomes a wasted potential of a story.

When it comes to the comedy, its very funny and the writing has a ton of wit where it strikes the right tone. But if you’re going to not tell an impactful story and waste a clever concept, that's fine, but there is NO REASON THIS NEEDS TO BE 2 HRS AND 15 GODDAMN MINUTES LONG! When a movie surpasses a two hr running time, it has to be the intention of delivering a story that is epic. This is a story in desperate need of finding a story and trying to be deep and philosophical themes such as the meaning of life, but by the time it ends it just comes out as being pretentious.

FULL REVIEW HERE: https://rendyreviews.com/movies//downsizing-review