Will Studios Catch Soderbergh's Virus Thriller?
Source: Deadline Hollywood
Hollywood studios finished 2009 with their wallets shut tight for spec scripts and new development. But maybe they'll open for Steven Soderbergh's latest: Contagion, an action-thriller that takes place in a worst case scenario of a deadly virus. He's got Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, and Jude Law ready to star in it this fall, with Participant Productions aboard as co-financier. Greg Jacobs will produce with Double Feature Films' Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher.
Of course, this is familiar movie territory, from The Andromeda Strain to Outbreak, which beat out Ridley Scott's The Hot Zone on the same topic. But both were hot properties, and given the subject matter, Soderbergh's involvement, and that cast, Contagion ought to spark a bidding battle. Several studio execs have read it, and the project will be be shopped shortly by the producers and Soderbergh's rep Michael Sugar. The script is supposerd to be Traffic meets Bourne.and was written by Scott Z. Burns, best known for co-writing The Bourne Ultimatum, and who most recently collaborated with Soderbergh on The Informant!, as did Participant, Damon and Jacobs.
After Che, the maverick writer-director has moved in a more commercial direction. He began production last week on Knockout, the Relativity Media-financed espionage thriller he built around mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano, surrounding the newcomer with Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, and Michael Fassbender.
How is it that every couple of months, Soderbergh has a new project that seems to pop up out of the blue, all packaged and ready to go? It hardly seems human.
Jude Law Reveals He'll Play A Blogger In Steven Soderbergh's 'Contagion'
Source: MTV
The ensemble cast of Steven Soderbergh's sprawling "Contagion," a film that weaves together various perspectives on a deadly viral outbreak, seems to have fallen into place: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard, with Laurence Fishburne possibly joining up as well. Yet little is publicly known about who they'll all play.
While promoting his sci-fi thriller "Repo Men" on Tuesday, Law revealed to MTV News exactly what his role in the story will be. "I play a kind of unbridled blogger who's a sort of scaremonger," he said.
In mid-February, Warner Bros. beat out a bunch of other studios to pick up rights to the film. Law envisions a start to shooting at some point in 2010. "I think we're going to do that end of the year," he said. "It's an enormous ensemble piece so it's someone's logistical nightmare. How they get us all, I don't know. It's under the same studio as '[Sherlock] Holmes,' so it'll probably fit in and around that."
Law admitted he's not sure how much else he could say about the project, but he did mention some of the other viewpoints "Contagion" will follow. "Basically, yes, it's about a deadly virus unleashed and you see it from many different points of view, whether it be the public, medical care, politicians," he said.
And then there's Jude Law, blogger-at-large, in a role sounding a bit similar to Woody Harrelson's paranoid Internet maven in "2012," though presumably not in quite such a ham-fisted manner.
"They're saving it till the end of the year because I got a lot of method, a lot of deep character work I got to do to get there," Law said, laughing.
Soderbergh's Contagion Contaminates 2011 in 3D!
Source: ComingSoon
Warner Bros. Pictures has announced a slew of movies they will be readying for release in 2011, setting tentative release dates between April and December of next year.
The biggest announcement among them is that Steven Soderbergh will be releasing his virus thriller Contagion, starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Marion Cotillard in 3D on October 21, 2011. Having spoken with Soderbergh about 3D this time last year, he told ComingSoon.net how he had been suitably impressed when he was given an early sneak peek at James Cameron's Avatar, so it isn't too big a surprise that he has decided to give it a go with his next big movie.
ok so it looks like every one is having a go at the 3D thing, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
so far every major director who has jumped on the wagon has made perfect sense. cameron, jackson and spielberg need to keep their money bags filled. zemeckis is TERRIFIED of real humans (to him it's PEOPLE who ellicit the unncanny valley response). scorsese has been trying to redeem himself in the only way that will actually bring him any satisfaction, making money, for 10 years now. soderbergh has always made one for them and one for him. who am i missing?
anyway it's no cause for alarm just yet cos even tho a lot of great directors might have a go it will probly just be a once off for a lot of these.
trailer. (http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/contagion/)
This is an odd criticism but the lighting looks horrible. Anyone else notice the sickly yellows and overall video-y feel? Not sure I'm a fan of Soderbergh's RED obsession if this (and parts of The Informant) are the results.
All right, I'm interested. Previously, I was intrigued by Haywire but didn't give a shit about this one, and now I'm ready to lay down ten bucks for it. So good trailering, trailer.
I have to say the look of it doesn't bother me. It's clearly a choice, not a deficiency in the camera or in Soderbergh's use of it. You even used the word "sickly" to describe the color palette; for a movie about disease, I'm going to go ahead and call that one intentional.
I agree that it's a choice. I think it's a look that Soderbergh likes for whatever reason now that he's shooting everything RED. It fits more for this film (the pun was intended) but he also used this style in The Informant, Bubble, and parts of GF Experience. I don't think the same look is nearly as justifiable in those movies. I haven't seen Che, but I'd be curious if it looks similar too.
I guess it's a reaction to how gorgeous Solaris and Oceans 11 are, and being impressed with the fact that Soderbergh DPed them despite only DPing two movies before that. Of course Solaris and Oceans are supposed to look slick, but Soderbergh's last few movies have varied widely in tone and subject matter and yet they all look kind of the same.
I'll agree that Bubble and Informant looked pretty awful. I get the feeling with Soderbergh that he just likes experimenting so much that he thinks, "Okay, I've figured out how to shoot movies that look good, why don't I try making them shitty-looking for a bit?" Most of his artistic decisions seem designed simply to stave off his own boredom.
yes, very nice trailer. i think i saw mod's next avatar in there.
LOOKS COOL.
Great trailer. My only worry is that this will spark some hypochondria in myself.
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kind of a grindhouse vibe. MATT DAMON CONTAGION.
Matt Damon is a contagion.
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on August 10, 2011, 02:18:39 PM
Matt Damon is a contagion.
I'd catch that.
EDIT: Fucking new page.
better to be first on a new one than last on an old one.
Saw it in IMAX.
My Full Review Here (http://mattwriteswords.com/2011/09/09/matt-writes-movie-reviews-contagion)
The gist:
"It's an interesting and rigorously intellectual take on the kind of viral epidemic that seems entirely plausible, if not inevitable. There are parts of it that almost begin to feel like a documentary, tracing how we responded to this horrible thing. When the film ended, I felt like I wasn't really left with much, but while it's playing, it's compelling stuff."
Saw this tonight. I really liked the photography. But it's a Soderbergh movie so it better be bold. Lots of primary color filter use at good times, etc.
I couldn't get myself to stop thinking about every other zombie movie I've ever seen though. It needed to stand out. Since it's not a survival-horror flick, what's the point here? That something like this could happen one day, our government will take too long to respond and somebody will make millions off a vaccine? Doesn't anyone rational already realize that? Contagion feels like it's trying to warn us about something that we're already aware is a distinct possibility. It's like warning a skydiver that if he/she keeps it up, one day that parachute may not open.
Spielberg mentioned on the "Eyes Wide Shut" bonus features that he and Kubrick used to discuss the merit of making certain pictures. Paraphrased, Kubrick would ask him something like, "Gee, that sounds kind of boring. How can you make it more interesting?" Or, "Why do you want to make this picture?" That thought ran through my head watching Contagion. It just never really takes off. It wants to be an ensemble film of sorts but I never felt much of a connection to any of the characters. I rarely say this but it honestly could have and maybe should have been a half hour longer. You just don't make a movie like this and try to cram all of your ideas into 110 minutes unless a studio demanded cuts or something like that.
Overall though? I'd say C+ with a B- not out of the question. Solid to good movie. Very pretty. But you could rent it and not feel bad.
amounts to absolutely nothing. some decent pacing to start and i was pretty taken aback by the scale of some of this, mostly because it looks like it was shot and edited within a week. it takes a decent enough premise and a promising beginning and dulls the shit out of it. the stunt casting here is jarring and mostly silly. haven't been lulled into such apathy or boredom in a while. lots of self-congratulatory politicizing and a half-assed attempt at the hokey humanism of early sci-fi/disaster movies. an entirely useless movie.
i haven't made it out to the movies in a long time so seeing this and drive in the same day was a nice run between two ends of the spectrum. this one reaffirmed my withdrawal of interest in movies and the other was a much needed reminder of why i fell in love with movies in the first place. (as the cliche goes.)
Called it.
I liked it.
I don't think he used a single production light in the entire movie.
I thought it was FINE, but my biggest gripe was actually how it looked. Would it make sense/mean anything to anyone if I said that it felt like a movie shot on the RED? Is that just in my head?
yep, that's what i was saying. it's under lit. with the red, if you're not shooting exteriors you gotta light the shit outta it to get rid of that digital mud.
Quote from: JG on September 18, 2011, 05:01:16 PM
I thought it was FINE, but my biggest gripe was actually how it looked. Would it make sense/mean anything to anyone if I said that it felt like a movie shot on the RED? Is that just in my head?
it was shot on the RED.
http://www.red.com/experience (http://www.red.com/experience)
Yea, I know.
red's gotta release the epic for everyone other than peter jackson and all those other hollywood folks. I think soderberg should think about doing some scenes with HDR on the epic. I really enjoy his aesthetic however some of the scenes in contagion really pushed the darks. if he had two exposures to deal with, he could really find a happy medium and get rid of some of the muddy visuals. I remember seeing the same thing in the informant. I'm sure the only production light they used in contagion was a kino for fill. It's great to think you can make a movie like that, but the red isn't quite up to snuff to really pull it off.
I know Aesthetic is subjective, and I don't mean to spark the Michael Mann debate again but the almost dogma 95 way soderberg is approaching lighting recently could be tweaked.
I'm pretty sure of stevie wanted to get clean blacks, he COULD GET CLEAN BLACKS, from whatever camera he wanted to work from.
yes but that involves lights. If the trade off is clean blacks over the minimal look, it seems he wants minimal these days. I don't doubt his ability.
This fucking freaked me out and makes me want to finish my medical insurance forms. but in all seriousness this scared the shit of me. I know I have a knee jerk emotional reaction to most movies but gosh darn it, I might have nightmares tonight again. The cast that they got for this is superb as usual. Soderbergh pulls out all the stops in this film and had my heart racing. I understand some of the detractors and complaints from this film but I usually watch films for the cathartic experience and not just for what kind of film stock the film used.
I'm sure sodonebergh doesn't even remember he made this.
It didn't have Channing Tatum in it, so he doesn't give a fuck about it anymore. Channing Tatum is to Soderbergh now as Dicaprio is to Scorsese.
'Contagion,' Steven Soderbergh's 2011 Thriller, Is Climbing Up the Charts
People are streaming it because of coronavirus fears. "I paid $12.99 to watch a 10-year-old movie," the director Barry Jenkins said. "I've never done that before."
By Nicole Sperling
One of the hottest movies in the Warner Bros. library is a nine-year-old drama that kills off Gwyneth Paltrow in its first 15 minutes.
Fears of the coronavirus have prompted movie fans to re-examine Steven Soderbergh's star-studded 2011 thriller, "Contagion," a fictional account of a pandemic that kills 26 million people worldwide.
According to Warner Bros., the film was listed as No. 270 among its catalog titles at the end of December. Since the start of 2020, it has jumped to second, bested only by Harry Potter movies. "Contagion" is also trending on Amazon Prime Video and has flirted with the iTunes top 10.
Barry Jenkins, the writer and director of "Moonlight," the best picture winner at the 2017 Oscars, was one of the people who found himself interested in the film in recent days.
He said he had watched "Contagion" with his girlfriend, Lulu Wang, the writer and director of the acclaimed 2020 indie hit "The Farewell," while on location in Atlanta — the city, he was quick to point out, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has its headquarters.
The two film aficionados bought a download of "Contagion" from Comcast's Xfinity on-demand service.
"I paid $12.99 to watch a 10-year-old movie," Mr. Jenkins said. "I've never done that before."
But what drove him to watch a film he had already seen, one that depicts a terrifying situation similar to what is playing out in real time?
"I was really curious to see how well it would line up to what is happening right now," Mr. Jenkins said. "It was shocking. It felt like I was watching a documentary that has all these movie stars playing real people."
He added, "It scared me."
The virus in the Soderbergh film, called MEV-1, started in Asia and is easily transmitted through touch. (Anyone who watches it will never look at a doorknob the same way again.) The first symptom is a hacking cough. (Spoilers ahead: MEV-1 takes out Ms. Paltrow, patient zero in the film; her young son; and a doctor played by Kate Winslet. Matt Damon, who plays Ms. Paltrow's husband, proves immune.)
The concept of "social distancing" — which has recently been in the news — comes up often in the film. In a Feb. 25 news conference, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, recommended that cities and towns familiarize themselves with "social distancing measures," like dividing school classes into smaller groups or advising businesses to allow their employees to work from home.
"Contagion" also shows diligent scientists who ultimately save the day — a comfort for anyone looking for optimism — while highlighting the work of conspiracy theorists profiting off the spread of disinformation. A blogger played by Jude Law is particularly sinister.
In an article for Vox, Alissa Wilkinson recommended watching the film for its skillful depiction of the spread of disinformation. "It feels like it could have been released yesterday," she wrote.
Scott Z. Burns, who wrote the "Contagion" script, agreed.
"These viruses are tracer bullets through our society," he said. "They illuminate a lot of the problems that we have. One of the things I didn't anticipate was that we would have an issue with how truthful and on top of things our administration would be. I remember being most concerned that the spread of misinformation could be as prolific and dangerous as the virus."
Mr. Burns said he had received a wide swath of responses on social media lately. Some praise him for the film's accuracy. Others accuse him of being a member of the Illuminati. One person asked Mr. Burns if he thought it would be safe for him to travel to Hong Kong.
"I'm alarmed when people choose to ask a screenwriter for advice, rather than a doctor," he said.
Mr. Soderbergh sent Mr. Burns a text on Monday linking to a story about increased sales of elderberry, a holistic remedy that bears a striking similarity to the forsythia cure promoted in the film by Mr. Law's character.
Mr. Soderbergh turned down a request to be interviewed for this article.
"I will decline under the guise of social distancing," he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/business/media/coronavirus-contagion-movie.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/business/media/coronavirus-contagion-movie.html)