Last year, when Marvel Studios released “Eternals,” there was a lot of discussion about the one love scene in the film. Even though it was hardly a love scene and just featured two characters wiggling on top of each other for a few seconds, this is a remarkable achievement because prior to that, there has literally never been overt sexual activity in any of the Marvel Studios films. That’s more than two dozen features with nothing more than a kiss between lovers. And because of this, you probably shouldn’t expect Steven Soderbergh to get involved in any mainstream superhero films anytime soon.
Speaking to The Daily Beast, Steven Soderbergh talked about his upcoming feature, “KIMI.” And when he wasn’t talking about his technology-based thriller, the writer-director explained why he’s not a good choice to helm a superhero movie. No, he’s not “too good” to do one. He just doesn’t understand the severe lack of sex.
“I’m not a snob; it’s not that I feel it’s some lower tier in any way,” explained Soderbergh. “It really becomes about what universe you occupy as a storyteller. I’m just too earthbound to really release myself to a universe in which Newtonian physics don’t exist [laughs]. I just have a lack of imagination in that regard, which is why the one foray I had into pure science-fiction [2002’s ‘Solaris’] was essentially a character drama that happened to be set on a spaceship.”
He added, “Also, for a lot of these, for me to understand the world and how to write or supervise the writing of the story and the characters—apart from the fact that I can bend time and defy gravity and shoot beams out of my fingers—there’s no fucking. Nobody’s fucking! Like, I don’t know how to tell people how to behave in a world in which that is not a thing.”
“The fantasy-spectacle universe, as far as I can tell, typically doesn’t involve a lot of fucking, and also things like—who’s paying these people? Who do they work for? How does this job come to be?” continued the filmmaker.
So, for those hoping that Marvel or WB would swoop in and nab Soderbergh for a superhero film, it doesn’t seem like it would happen in a PG-13 world. Honestly, it just doesn’t seem like Soderbergh has the interest in trying to crack the superhero code, and he’s just being polite about the whole thing. For most Soderbergh fans, this is not a bad thing, at all.
“KIMI” hits HBO Max on February 10.
