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Soderbergh Catches 'Contagion' with Damon, Winslet & More

by Ethan Anderton
February 8, 2010

Despite the fact that Steven Soderbergh is currently hard at work on the action thriller Knockout, he's already lining up quite the cast for his next project. Last we heard his next was supposed to be the biopic about pianist Liberace with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. Now Deadline Hollywood (& The Playlist) are reporting that he's keeping Damon around, adding Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard and Jude Law, and trading in the biopic for the action thriller Contagion, focused on the worst-case scenario involving a deadly virus. Shooting will start later this year for a 2011 debut, though they don't have a distributor yet.

The deadly virus story has been seen before in several iterations of The Andromeda Strain, and Wolfgang Petersen's Outbreak. But with this cast and Soderbergh getting back into action thrillers (with two films no less) this concept feels fresh. It also helps that Scott Z. Burns (The Informant!, The Bourne Ultimatum) wrote a script that is supposed to play like Traffic meets Bourne. Personally, I can't wait to see Soderbergh do something more exciting. After the sparsely seen four hour Che saga, his very independent The Girlfriend Experience, and the low-key, though quality comedy The Informant!, I want to see him get back to action.

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