Paul Giamatti’s The Holdovers breaks a TIFF record with its mega-deal
Focus Features acquires the Alexander Payne-Paul Giamatti re-team film for $30 million
Aux News The Holdovers
Toronto International Film Festival has a new acquisition record, and the film in question is not even on this year’s roster. The Holdovers, from director Alexander Payne and starring Paul Giamatti, has officially been sold to Focus Features for a whopping $30 million, making it the biggest deal in the festival’s history.
The Holdovers sees Payne and Giamatti team up for their first collaboration since 2004's Oscar-winner Sideways, and serves as the follow-up to 2017's Downsizing starring Matt Damon. Per Deadline, Giamatti leads the film as Paul Hunham, a widely disliked teacher at the prep school Barton Academy.
The official description follows: “His non-fans include his students, fellow faculty and headmaster—who all find his pomposity and rigidity exasperating. With no family and nowhere to go over Christmas holiday in 1970, Paul remains at school to supervise students unable to journey home. After a few days, only one student holdover remains—a troublemaking 15-year-old named Angus, a good student undermined by bad behavior that always threatens to get him expelled. Joining Paul and Angus is Barton’s head cook Mary an African-American woman who caters to sons of privilege and whose own son recently was lost in Vietnam. These three very different shipwrecked people form an unlikely Christmas family, sharing comic misadventures during two very snowy weeks in New England, and realizing that none of them is beholden to their past.”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph (Only Murders In The Building, High Fidelity) stars in the film as Mary, alongside Carrie Preston, Gillian Vigman, and Tate Donovan.
“I came across a writing sample for a pilot set in a prep school by David Hemingson. I called him, told him the idea, and he jumped at it. Ever since I worked with Paul in Sideways, I’ve wanted to work with him again, and this role is tailor-made for him,” Payne said of working with Giamatti again. “I continue to think now as I did then. I hate to use the term ‘the finest actor of his generation’ because there are so many wonderful actors, but when I worked with him on Sideways, I was astounded by his range. As a director you want actors who can make even bad dialogue work, and he can do that. He can just do anything. I think it’s a matter of time before he gets his Oscar.”
The Holdovers is expected to have a theatrical release around Christmas 2023.
6 Comments
Someone broke a record at a film festival not involving standing ovations?
I need to know how long this was clapped at. And also how does this tie into Don’t Worry Darling drama?
Sound purchase, I’m sure it’ll make 25 million in North America after running in 2 theatres for a month and expanding about a week before the Oscars.
Paul Giamatti is a treasure and deserves every success.
So I don’t know how industry film festivals work. Is it basically that the producers show a bunch of films and distributors say “Yes I want the rights to that one” and cut deals with the producers? I thought those deals were in place well before the film even got made – where does the funding to make the movie come from?
In this specific case, Miramax had previously bought the distribution rights and resold them here to Focus. In other cases, investors may have funded the production to have the finished film to show to distributors rather than make a deal unseen. In other cases, a film may be fully funded and they’re in it for the competition and the press.