Steven Soderbergh's Comeback
Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 8:45AM 
Steven Soderbergh is retired no more. The director, who had previously announced Side Effects (2013) as his last feature film, is making two movies in the next year or so. It was just announced that he will be directing a feature film about The Panama Papers, the leaked documents which revealed how many of the super-rich employ legal, but dodgy accounting systems to avoid taxation. Even some luminaries in the film world (Emma Watson, Pedro Almodovar and the estate of Stanley Kubrick) were named in that scandal. The film will be based on Secrecy World, a to-be-published book by the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Jake Bernstein. The adaptation will be written by frequent Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z Burns (Contagion, Side Effects, The Informant!).
Sounds like another Contagion, no? Taking a global incident and examining it from different points of view. Before that he will make Ocean’s Fourteen -- well not exactly, but Logan Lucky is a crime thriller with an all star cast set in one location. Sound familiar? This time there’s no Clooney or Pitt but we will get Channing Tatum, Daniel Craig, Adam Driver, Katherine Heigl, Hilary Swank, Riley Keough, Seth MacFarlane and Katherine Waterston and the NASCAR race in North Carolina as the heist location.
Soderbergh never really retired of course. He became prolific on TV, directing The Knick and gifting us with Behind the Candelabra. He recently produced The Girlfriend Experience which raised Riley Keough’s profile so it fits that she’ll be part of his new movie. And let's not forget that he was the cinematographer on Magic Mike XXL. But with these two projects announced he’s now a full time feature films director again. Are you excited for his return?
Reader Comments (24)
That Panama Papers movie sounds exciting.
The second one: Tatum, Craig - HELL YASS! Swank, Heigl - um ugh no why?
It really doesn't matter who else you cast - if Seth McFarlane is in your movie, he will always be the worst thing about your movie.
No.
His best films are classics but they're too infrequent to get excited about whatever he takes on next. His ratio is roughly nine ambitious but ultimately undercooked misfires for every one solid film.
That said, Haywire remains offensively undervalued. And Out of Sight is just magic. And Sex, Lies and Videotape is mandatory viewing for any low budget filmmaker. And so on, and so on.
Soderbergh's a boring auteur. His ability to get awards worthy performances from movie stars gives me hope Sharon Stone will return to semi-prominence costarring in his HBO limited series.
Can it really be called a comeback when Katherine Heigl and Hilary Swank are starring?
Lol at the anti Swank brigade. She's great in The Homesman, Nathaniel even said so.
Soderbergh has THE worst taste in actors -
.Heigl - come on!
.Swank - enough of that buck tooth Sally!
.Tatum - handsome but vapid.
.Keough - so inexpressive - she has resting bitch face, something Sodebergh responds to - for proof see: Cody Horn (awful in Magic Mike), Sasha Grey (awful in The Girlfriend Experience), Gina Carano (awful in Haywire).
.MacFarlane - WTF!
Earlier movies:
Rooney Mara - hate her so much.
Alex Pettyfer - handsome but vapid
The Knick was perfectly cast - brilliant show -
Soderbergh should stick to doing TV - he hasn't made a good movie since the year 2000.
Soderbergh is always welcome as far as I'm concerned. That cast is a bit of a mixed group however.
The Knick was terrific - if you haven't seen it give it a shot, really well done on all levels.
That cast is very.....blah.
Driver and Tatum are "Yes's" for me as a rule, but the rest of this cast is "ehh." Swank and Craig have been good before, but it's been a while, and everyone else-no.
Is there a reason my comments keep getting deleted?
Swank despite the Oscar is s till underrated,hope this goes wellfor her,she deserves less heat for winning an Oscar a 2nd time,she didn't cast all those votes/
He is my favorite working director. I haven't seen everything, and I haven't adored everything I've seen, but there's no one smarter behind the camera right now. Yes, so excited.
I saw part of "Knocked Up" and part of "27 Dresses" and that's all the Katherine Heigl I've ever seen. I had no strong opinion on Heigl afterwards, but she seems to inspire a ton of hate. Why?
Yes! He makes interesting movies- HBO blew it by not giving "Behind the Candelabra" a theatrical release
Hmph. Always discouraging when auteurs ensemble all-star casts that turn out to be blindingly white. Don't they know how boring it looks and feels? This cast is made up of individually interesting actors and as a whole it's so....dull.
Katherine Heigl.... UGH!!!!
This may be my most trivial observation and commentary in this blog, but as much as I like him, I find Tatum's head and neck so odd. He's like a thumb.
Goran -- for some reason the spam filter targeted you. I've been trying to train it not to think of you as a spammer :) sorry. (i have no idea why you it keeps flagging you -- i periodically check what it's doing and try to fix its occasional mistakes)
Jones -- lol.i have heard people refer to him as a handsome potato.
Yeah, I'm kind of on the negative side w/ Soderburgh. I've never seen a movie of his that I thought was just downright great. He's had plenty of interesting movies (Traffic, King of the Hill) and several flops, as well as some interesting flops, but to be a great director in my eyes you need more than a bunch of mediocre to pretty good films on your resume. And I knew when he retired he didn't mean it.
Christ, I just remembered that Heigl was in Soderbergh's King Of The Hill from 1993, back when she was young and charming.
She's not so charming anymore!
Can't Soderbergh reunite with Peter Gallagher or James Spader or Alison Elliott or Adrien Brody or Erika Christensen instead?!.
I am not a huge fan of his...but have enjoyed a couple.... Do agree the cast sounds underwhelming.
Heigl has been replaced by Katie Holmes!