According to Deadline, Alexander Payne has stepped down from directing and executive producing the upcoming HBO/Sky miniseries Landscapers, which is a “blackly comic true-crime drama” based on a true story. The four-episode series will star Olivia Colman as Susan Edwards, a British woman who, along with her husband, murdered her parents and managed to hide their bodies in a backyard. It was made with “extensive research,” including “hours of interviews and direct access to the accused.”
Will Sharpe, who directed Flowers, is stepping in to replace Payne, and a spokesperson says that a scheduling issue is to blame for Payne’s departure (apparently he’s making a “2021 original feature project… that has seasonal filming requirements.” Timing-wise, this is all happening a little over a month after Payne denied sexual misconduct allegations that had been raised by Rose McGowan, who said back in August that Payne had shown her a “soft-core porn movie” that he made under a different name for Showtime back in the ‘80s when she was only 15, adding, “you left me on a street corner afterwards.” Payne noted in his denial that he had never directed anything, “lurid or otherwise,” in the timeframe that McGowan mentioned, though he says they did meet in 1991 when she auditioned for a Playboy Channel thing Payne was making (which would’ve made her 17 or 18).
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“is a “blackly comic true-crime drama” based on a true story.”Pass. I only like true-crime dramas based on fictional stories.
So, Fargo.
That’s correct.
“steps” “down”
Alexander Payne wikiIt appears that he started getting high level director credit in 1996. He’d have been about 35 then.
I suppose he could have had undercover director jobs 7-10 years earlier for Showtime, under an alias, in his late 20s, but that seems less plausible than Rose having made a mistake? Remembering the wrong guy from around 1988-1989?
It seems odd that she wouldn’t remember him 2 – 3 years later, in 1991, as a guy that had treated her badly, and then continue a relationship with him?
She also claimed that she completely quit acting for 6 years, 15-21, because of it. But she worked steadily through those years according to her IMDB credits. I mean, what a bizarre claim to make
Rose has made a career of making allegations. That’s all she’s got.
Her accusations and his denial weren’t subjected to a reporter since she put her accusations on her social media platforms and his was a guest column. But at least one reporter did look into it a little at the time and came to the conclusion that her claims weren’t accurate: https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/rose-mcgowan-alexander-payne-1.48228172It would have been better if this entire thing would have been subjected to some journalistic integrity from the start, rather than the ‘some people on Twitter are saying…’ bullshit we have to sift through now in the age of social media standing in for journalism.
Lol
It should be noted as well that when McGowan was 15, Payne would have still been in film school. I don’t think Showtime is in the habit of paying amateurs who haven’t finished school yet to direct their soft-core porn flicks, as terrible as they are It’s entirely possible she was picked up by some guy who looked like a guy she met a few years later and mistakenly conflated them. But there’s no way the guy in her story was Payne.
Ah, the Kavanaugh defense.
Lol bye
anybody know the name of the softcore porno alexander payne made??
No Payne, more Will Sharpe? I call that a win-win.