Trivia / Downsizing

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Matt Damon signed up for the film because he's a massive fan of Alexander Payne.
• Box Office Bomb: Cost $68 million to produce, grossed $52 million worldwide.
• Creator's Oddball: The film is Alexander Payne's only sci-fi film, as well as his only large budget (most sources report around $70 million) commercial film.
• What Could Have Been: The film originally had a Framing Device that was set up in the opening scene. It was about the descendants of the original Norwegian colony 5,000 years in the future.
  Alexander Payne:There were a few scenes, and a framing device - that all of this is being told like a myth from tiny people 5000 years in the future. The big extinction did come, wiped everyone out, and then we pick up the story with the tiny people who have repopulated the planet coming out of the vault 5000 years in the future. And an old storyteller is telling children around a campfire, 'Years ago, the world was ruled by giants.' 'Ohhh!' 'But the giants were always hungry, and they fished all the seas, and killed all the animals, and burned down all the forests, and made the world unbearably hot!' 'Ohhh!' And then he starts to tell the story of Paul Safranek.

---