As is usually the case, Steven Soderbergh’s plate is full. Last week came the announcement that his ambitious two-part, four-hour Spanish-language biopic of Che Guevara starring Benicio del Toro will premiere at Cannes next month, even though it had originally been speculated that one of the films would not be completed in time to screen. (Apparently the second part, Guerilla, is essentially complete, while The Argentine still awaits the finishing touches.)
Soderbergh’s follow-up, The Informant, is set to go before the cameras any day now. Described by the Hollywood Reporter as “a thriller with dark comedy elements,” the picture stars Matt Damon as an agri-business whistleblower who works with FBI agents played by Scott Bakula and The Soup host Joel McHale (!) to uncover a price-fixing scam.
When The Informant is done, Soderbergh begins work on The Girlfriend Experience, which is more in line with the director’s low-budget curiosity Bubble. According to Variety, the “title refers to a phenomenon in which wealthy men pay not just for the quality of a sexual encounter but also for a woman who will play the role of a perfect girlfriend. The arrangement apparently involves more intimacy than the usual prostitution relationship.” Soderbergh is considering casting an adult movie star in the lead role of a $10,000 a night call girl.
But that’s not all! The IMDb also lists a documentary currently called Untitled Spalding Gray Project as a 2008 release currently in post-production. Soderbergh previously directed the performance film Gray’s Anatomy…but of course that was when the monologuist was still alive. As best we can tell, the new project is a retrospective of Gray’s life, which ended with his suicide in 2004.
Other than that, Soderbergh has absolutely nothing going on.