You’ll remember during the pandemic, Steven Soderbergh revealed he wrote three scripts in a three-month blaze at the beginning of lockdown. One of them was a sequel to “Sex, Lies, and Videotape.”
Well, it’s not happening, and in a recent Variety article, Soderbergh said while he got actors like Andie MacDowell and Laura San Giacomo to agree to return, he feels like the idea has missed its moment and he’ll likely turn it into a novel instead (which would be his first).
“It doesn’t feel as of the moment as it did,” he explained.
According to Soderbergh, the film would have focused on the characters played by the actors mentioned above. Specifically, the film would have found Cynthia (San Giacomo) trying to reconnect with her daughter before the daughter’s impending nuptials. Again, the actors agreed to star in the film, but as time went on, it apperas Soderbergh just felt like the time had passed. So, hopefully, we’ll see that script get the novelization treatement and finally get released. There are plenty of fans of the filmmaker who would love to see what Soderbergh could do with a novel.
Meanwhile, there’s “Black Bag,” a new spy thriller just announced last week from “Presence” writer David Koepp, starring Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. During a recent interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Soderbergh said the film would have a Howard Hawks-like “entertaining” vibe.
“[The] solution now is to split in the opposite direction and make something that is equally well-served by forgetting this idea and shooting in a way that would hopefully appear seamless for the audience,” Soderbergh said. “It’s a pure pleasure space. Something entertaining like Howard Hawks is the best way to go.”
“The script is great,” he continued. “I hope there is a way to do it because I would get to annihilate what I just did (with’Presence’). And the script and the cast went out to prospective buyers on Tuesday. So, at Sundance, I’ll either be happy or worried.”
Even if you’re not a fan of Soderbergh’s film work, you have to applaud his work ethic. Over the span of this piece, we’ve detailed how he wrote multiple scripts, including a sequel to a film that is decades old. But even in the face of realizing that script won’t see the light of day, perhaps turning it into a novel, the filmmaker isn’t slowing down whatsoever. He has a film that is delighting audiences at this year’s Sundance and already knee-deep into development of his next one.
This is just par for the course for a filmmaker who has made three dozen films since “Sex, Lies and Videotape” in 1989. The man just doesn’t stop. All that to say, don’t be surprised if we see a new novel from Soderbergh, as well as at least one new feature film by the end of 2024.
