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The rumors about Ocean's Eleven and Erin Brockovich director Steven Soderbergh's pending retirement from movie-making accelerated last month when Matt Damon told The LA Times that Soderbergh's retirement was "getting closer" to fruition.
He wants to paint and he says he's still young enough to have another career. He's kind of exhausted with everything that interested him in terms of form. He's not interested in telling stories. Cinema interested him in terms of form and that's it. He says, "If I see another over-the-shoulder shot, I'm going to blow my brains out."
Damon added that after finishing his next movie, the thriller Contagion, that Soderbergh would direct "Liberace next summer with Michael Douglas, and then he might do one more movie after that with George [Clooney], and then after that he's retiring."
how did soderbergh respond? >> Posted 01.12.11 by Ryan -
A new update on Steven Soderbergh's spy flick Knockout: Dennis Quaid has dropped out of the project due to a scheduling conflict, according to The Playlist. Knockout centers around mixed martial arts star Gina Carano, and Quaid was slated to portray her character's father.
In negotiations to replace him is Bill Paxton, known best for his roles in Aliens and Apollo 13. He also had a memorable performance in Sam Raimi's thriller A Simple Plan.
The Playlist also writes that French actor Mathieu Kassovitz (Amelie, Munich) has joined the cast, which already includes Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, and Channing Tatum.
The story sees Carano as a black ops specialist, the other cast members as part of her team. She has to go on the run once she's betrayed, although it's unclear who the rat is. The movie is due out sometime in 2011.
Soderbergh has several other forthcoming projects, including the Spalding Grey documentary And Everything Is Going Fine, the biopic Liberace (starring Matt Damon alongside Michael Douglas in the title role), and Cleo, a musical retelling of the story of Cleopatra set in the 1920s and starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Posted 01.27.10 by reelz -
A few days ago, Rhys Muldoon talked about Steven Soderbergh's secret improv movie, filmed in Australia with the cast of Soderbergh's play, Tot Mom.
Now, The Playlist writes that another of Soderbergh's forthcoming projects just signed a slew of all-star cast members. Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, and Dennis Quaid have all agreed to star in Knockout. The movie, described as a "revenge action-spy thriller," centers around mixed martial arts champion Gina Carano, whose only previous movie-acting credit was Blood and Bone with Michael Jai White.
All four actors will portray members of Carano's special unit. Carano herself is an agent who is betrayed by someone close to her. The rat will most likely be played by either Fassbender or another high-profile male actor, who was not named because his participation is yet to be confirmed. Douglas will play a governement agent, while McGregor will play the owner of a private military group.
Douglas is also set to star in the title role of Soderbergh's biopic Liberace, which will feature Matt Damon. In addition, Douglas will be reprising his role as Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's upcoming sequel Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.
Fassbender, who is on the rise after starring in 300 and Inglourious Basterds, will also be starring opposite Josh Brolin and Megan Fox in this summer's graphic-novel adaptation Jonah Hex.
Posted 01.08.10 by reelz -
Last summer, Steven Soderbergh announced that he may be retiring from filmmaking in a few years. We can only hope that this was said out of disappointment for losing control of Moneyball and so shouldn't be taken seriously.
The next few years will tell whether Soderbergh was speaking in earnest, but in the meantime he's continuing his trend as one of the most versatile and prolific directors working today. He's already laid the foundation for the current indie movement with Sex, Lies, and Videotape. He's done major Hollywood projects like Ocean's Eleven and Erin Brockovich while simultaneously creating experimental works like Schizopolis and Bubble, which he released simultaneously in theaters and on DVD. And of course, he suffered through the six-hour biopic Che, which he cited as a brutally stressful shoot.
Now, The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the 46-year-old director shot a movie in secret while in Australia. Soderbergh spent last month with Cate Blanchett's Sydney Theater Company directing Tot Mom, his documentary-style play about the media storm surrounding a Florida girl's disappearance.
At some point, it seems Soderbergh shot a movie on-the-fly with the play's cast members. Company actor Rhys Muldoon described it as a ''pretty much improvised film." Of course, Soderbergh isn't allowed to reveal any details, which gives the project a nice, manufactured air of mystery.
In the meantime, Soderbergh already has several projects lined up for 2010, including the Spalding Grey documentary And Everything Is Going Fine, the Gina Carano vehicle Knockout, and the biopic Liberace, starring Matt Damon alongside Michael Douglas in the title role.
Posted 01.06.10 by reelz -
Yesterday afternoon, Variety reported that Matt Damon has agreed to star in Hereafter, Clint Eastwood's next production, with a script by Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen). Just hours later, Empire reported that Damon had also signed on to star in Steven Soderbergh's upcoming biopic of Liberace.
Although Warner Bros. is keeping the plot of Hereafter under wraps — describing it only as akin to The Sixth Sense — Movie Line, which claims to have a version of the script, has described the plot in extensive detail. Based on that description, the movie seems less a supernatural thriller and more a tragic meditation on death. Damon's character is described as a "handsome, shy, soft-spoken" factory worker who can ... yes, indeed ... see dead people. Production on Hereafter is expected to begin this fall.
Meanwhile, Soderbergh confirmed that Damon is onboard for his next project, saying at the Deauville Film Festival that Damon has "accepted the challenge." Damon would most likely play the male lover of Liberace, the flamboyant musician whose stage and TV career spanned from the 1940s to his death in the late 1980s. The movie will apparently focus on a 1982 lawsuit, in which Damon's character revealed Liberace's homosexuality, shocking many around the world.
The untitled project already has Michael Douglas on board in the main role, and Soderbergh talked about his enthusiasm for Douglas' fit for the role.
We've already done some costume and wardrobe tests on Michael, and they're very, very, very good.... I swear to you, Michael amazed me. He crushed it.
Damon has starred in other projects by both directors. He can be seen in Soderbergh's The Informant!, now in theaters, and he is also featured in Eastwood's Invictus, which is due out in December. The latter movie stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Damon as Francois Pienaar, captain of South Africa's 1995 Rugby World Cup team. It tells the story of Mandela's attempts to use the rugby event to heal his country's reputation after years of apartheid and internal struggle.
Posted 09.18.09 by reelz