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ALEXANDER PAYNE’S “THE DESCENDANTS” BEGINS SHOOTING

Six years after making the cross-over hit Sideways, Alexander Payne has begun production on his next film, The Descendants.

Announced by Fox Searchlight, the film, based on Kaui Hart Hemmings‘s novel, started principal photography today in Hawaii. The film stars George Clooney as, according to the release, an indifferent husband and father of two girls, who is forced to re-examine his past and embrace his future when his wife suffers a boating accident off of Waikiki.

Also starting are Judy Greer, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Robert Forster, Shailene Woodley, Mary Birdsong, Nick Krause and Amara Miller.

Surprisingly, Taylor is not co-writing the script with Payne (the two have shared screenwriting credit on all of Payne’s features since 1996’s Citizen Ruth and took home an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Sideways) but will be on as a producer. This time around Payne has writing credit with actors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

Since Sideways, Payne directed one of the shorts in 2006’s Paris, je t’aime (the great finale to the film starring Margo Martindale as a tourist) and directed the pilot to HBO’s Hung, which he also executive produced. He also executive produced Tamara Jenkins‘s The Savages.

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