Steven Soderbergh is “back” next week with “Logan Lucky,” and though everyone likes to play with the narrative that he was gone, that’s not really the case. While the director did step away from feature films for a bit, he was still working ridiculously hard, shooting and editing two seasons of the outstanding “The Knick” himself. He’s also got his HBO project “Mosaic” on the way, he’s producing next summer’s “Ocean’s 8,” and probably has a few more things in the works we don’t even know about yet. All that being said, Soderbergh did have a serious think about his career and what it means to make movies before jumping back into features.
The New York Times has profiled the filmmaker, who makes it clear that whatever he does next on the movie front, he’s no longer interested in the status quo. Soderbergh is closely involved with nearly every aspect of “Logan Lucky,” breaking away from traditional Hollywood release patterns and economics, to try and best construct a movie that’s fiscally responsible and profitable, while avoiding the standard mechanics of movie marketing by taking a more hands on, focused approach.
This new desire to shake up the game also means you won’t find the Oscar-winning director of “Traffic” coming anywhere near a movie that is pre-designed to win Oscars or earn prestige. According to the Times, Soderbergh’s experience making his great, two-part “Che” turned him off to those kinds of movies.
“ ‘Che’ beat that out of me,” he admitted, as the picture may have been critically embraced, but floundered commercially. Striking that balance seems to be new challenge Soderbergh is embracing.
“It’s really easy to make a movie that five people understand,” he explained. “It’s really hard to make something that a lot of people understand, and yet is not obvious, still has subtlety and ambiguity, and leaves you with something to do as a viewer.”
So, we can probably count out more movies like “Bubble” from the filmmaker. What can we expect? Well, there’s someone else in Hollywood who Soderbergh praises for finding their mojo again, keeping their creative voice, and finding commercial success: M. Night Shyamalan.
“He went back to his roots and has rebuilt himself, and is right back where he was,” he says the director who has rebounded with “The Visit” and “Split.” Can’t really argue with that.
“Logan Lucky” opens on August 18th.