Well, the Steven Soderbergh/David Koepp relationship continues. After writing the surveillance thriller, “Kimi” and the upcoming ghost movie “Presence” which will premiere at Sundance soon, screenwriter David Koepp (“Jurassic Park,” “Carlito’s Way”) has penned yet another film for director Steven Soderbergh. This one, a spy thriller, is called “Black Bag” and has Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender attached to the star.
This would also be the second Soderbergh/Koepp surprise announcement in less than three months. THR reports that this secret project is set in the U.K., but that’s all that’s really known plot-wise. The hush-hush project hit the desk of streamers this week as a hot package to potentially bid over and find financing and distribution. The hope is to be shooting by May in London, but no deals are set, and essentially, the whole project hinges on someone fitting the bill (likely an Apple or a Netflix, the latter of which has already released Soderbergh films like “High Flying Birds”).
Both Blanchett and Fassbender have starred for Soderbergh before, the former in 2006’s WWII drama “The Good German,” the latter in 2011’s spy thriller “Haywire” alongside Gina Carano.
Koepp and Soderbergh have known each other and been friends for a good twenty years but only collaborated for the first time on 2022’s “Kimi,” starring Zoë Kravitz. Their latest collaboration, “Presence,” was a surprise announcement in the 2024 Sundance line-up, and it’s a ghost story thriller that stars Lucy Liu, Julia Fox, and Chris Sullivan. The film was shot in the fall of 2023 and was complete and ready to screen at Sundance by year’s end.
Soderbergh recently revealed the film was shot from the perspective of the specter in the movie. “I wanted to find a different way to tell the story,” Soderbergh told Variety this week. “Everything is revealed through the glimpses of this family that this presence sees. And the whole ghost genre element is a Trojan horse to show a group of people in danger of falling apart.”
Soderbergh has obviously already made a spy thriller in “Haywire” and was always said to be interested in the Bond franchise.