Backup director for this (and his other later stuff)?

Maybe someone might know the answer to this, I'll admit there are probably exhaustive Altman profiles/bios out there that will answer what I'm about to ask, but here goes.... Towards the end of RA's life he couldn't get financing without having a backup director under contract to pick up where he left off if he passed away during filming because of his age. It's well known that that fallback director of "A Prairie Home Companion" was Paul Thomas Anderson - who obviously learned a thing or two, as "There Will Be Blood" is an all-time masterpiece - and it's been reported (I want to say in Entertainment Weekly) that Stephen Frears filled that role on "Gosford Park."

Who was that director on "The Company"? I'm hoping someone on IMDb knows. For that matter, I'd like to know who would have been that person waiting in the wings on other late-period work of merit like "Cookie's Fortune" or "Kansas City," if anyone knows. I guess the reason for this is to see how the designated observer might have benefitted, as I mentioned earlier PTA made his best movie afterwords and Frears made "The Queen" a couple years later which is one of his best.