Yes, everyone, Steven Soderbegh is still retiring/taking a hiatus from moviemaking. While the thriller "The Bitter Pill" is indeed a new film on the way from the director, he's only making it because he loves the Scott Z. Burns script, but secondly, it fits into some free space he has available. "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." was originally being lined up to shoot next spring, but when he walked from the project, he was looking at other potential scripts with the following criteria: only if they could fill that time gap next spring and, only if a studio was going to distribute it (taking it the indie route and waiting to find a home would add an even longer delay to his desire to do other things).
Today, Deadline confirmed our report that Summit and Paramount are the homes being eyed by Soderbergh, but add that the former is now the frontrunner. However, they also unveil some plot details that weren't in the initial updates about the film. According to the site, "The Bitter Pill" will tell the story of a depressed woman who, anxious about the impending release of her husband from prison, takes a serious amount of perscription meds to deal with it. But this doesn't seem a cautionary tale about abusing drugs. Instead, it's being described as a movie in the vein of "Jagged Edge" or "Basic Instinct" but we think there's also a clue in the film's former title "The Side Effects," which we hope points to a trippy take on the genre standard.
No word yet on who will star but considering filming kicks off in a few months, this one will be put together quickly. 2012 will be a big, presumably final year for Soderbergh fans with two movies out — "Haywire" and "Magic Mike" — and two movies shooting, "The Bitter Pill" which will be followed quickly with his long developing Liberace pic "Behind The Candelabra."