by Nathaniel R
Steven Soderbergh is a liar. He "retired" around the time of Side Effects / Behind the Candelabra (2013) and has since made two feature films and two TV series. Ha ha. That kind of lie we like. Good filmmakers should never retire. They should hold cameras in their hands until they drop. At any rate, add two more films to Soderbergh's huge resume. That's four films since retiring 5 years ago. Teehee...
He's already finished something called High Flying Bird about a sports agent (André Holland) who gets a rookie player involved in a controversial deal. The cast also includes Bill Duke, Zazie Beetz, Zachary Quinto and Kyle Maclachlan. The film is written by Moonlight scribe Tarell Alvin McCraney! He shot it on an iPhone as he did with Unsane and he had the first cut down two and half hours after filming wrapped. LOL
Picture wrap on HIGH FLYING BIRD at 1:09pm. First cut complete at 3:41pm. pic.twitter.com/GXIEZICHYg
— Bitchuation (@Bitchuation) March 15, 2018
And at any moment he's starting (just started?) production of The Laundromat for Netflix. The Laundromat has been kicking around for a while as a project but with Netflix backing it, it's green light and go with that all-star cast: Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, David Schwimmer, Will Forte, plus Soderbergh alums Antonio Banderas and Riley Keough. It's not about an actual laundromat but about money laundering by the wealthy. It's based on the book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite. Sounds fairly heavy, depressing, and dry... and the title definitely makes you think "documentary!"
Here's a cryptic tweet from the filmmaker about The Laundromat
What does this location have to do with THE LAUNDROMAT movie? Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/6HCsqGQ0Oh
— Bitchuation (@Bitchuation) September 26, 2018
Though I'm always hoping Meryl Streep will work with great directors, I find her more political films (Manchurian Candidate, Lions for Lambs, Rendition, Iron Lady...) to be her very worst films (The Post excepted) so hoping she dodges that quality bullet this time because Soderbergh is, like all of the insanely prolific directors (think Eastwood, Allen) a hit & miss proposition. Anyway, I'm dying for Streep to do like a modest family drama or a romantic comedy again... something that's all about the character work rather than a message, like a What They Had or another It's Complicated.