Paul Giamatti's The Holdovers breaks a TIFF record with its mega-deal

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.