It looks like George Clooney’s next project will be a collaboration with the man behind Sideways and Election, Alexander Payne, called The Descendants.

The movie will be based on a novel of the same name by author Kaui Hart Hemmings and has been adapted for the screen by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (Rash is a regular writer on Saturday Night Live).

From MTV -

According to Hemmings’ website, The Descendants focuses on Matthew King, a wealthy landowner with Hawaiian royalty in his blood. Life is far from perfect for Matthew — he has two irascible daughters in the form of ten-year-old Scottie and seventeen-year-old Alex, not to mention the fact that his high maintenance wife has slipped into an irreversible coma.

Making the impending death of Matthew’s wife even worse is the fact that her secret lover hasn’t been informed of the situation. Acting upon a sense of obligation, Matthew and his two daughters hit the road in search of the mystery man, perhaps the only man Matthew’s wife ever truly loved.

Sideways is one of my favourite films of recent years so I have a lot of time for anything from Payne and I think Clooney is capable of striking that balance of being funny, but just realistic enough to be believable as a real person. Having not read the book I’m not sure how the balance of comedy and drama is going to be struck but from the synopsis it sounds like there will be ample opportunity for ‘zany’ adventures which I think will work well in Payne’s hands.