Though he was developing the film in 2009, and even reached the casting stage, Alexander Payne put Downsizing aside to concentrate on The Descendants and Nebraska. It appears he’s finally ready to commit to the high-concept film and has Matt Damon attached to star.
Payne wrote the script with Sideways partner Jim Taylor. Though there may have been changes along the way, the plot should still see a man low on money who decides that life would be a lot cheaper and easier if he underwent a procedure to shrink himself. Travelling through life as a tiny person, he meets a girl and a pint-sized foreigner. Paul Giamatti, Reese Witherspoon and Sacha Baron Cohen were attached back in ’09, but this sounds like a new cast in the making.
The film will see Payne dabbling in effects technology to a greater extent than ever before, with green screen and other tricks needed to pull off the shrinking scenes. An Alexander Payne VFX film… the mind boggles.
As for Damon, he’s about to start work on Ridley Scott’s sci-fi drama The Martian.