What’s the perennially prolific Steven Soderbergh up to these days?
Currently, he’s in a editing room finishing up “Knockout,” while prepping the virus thriller “Contagion” for a September production — in 3D no less — and awaiting the release of his Spalding Gray documentary, “And Everything Is Going Fine” (still looking for distribution, no?).
But that’s kind of a slow year for Soderbergh, right? Well, he’s also prepping the Michael Douglas-starring “Liberace” for a 2011 shoot — there’s conflicting reports, one that says a January 2011 shoot and one that says May 2011, we’re inclined to believe the latter — and according to a nugget of info buried at the bottom of a recent WSJ article, he’s also planning a DVD release of his under-appreciated 1991 film, “Kafka,” starring Jeremy Irons, Alec Guinness (in one of his last screen appearance before he died nine years later) and Ian Holm.
“Kafka” was never readily available on DVD, and interestingly enough the filmmaker is apparently not only re-cutting the picture, he’s also shooting new footage for his director’s cut. The bad news: it’s expected to arrive in two years (2012), but hopefully it’ll be worth the wait (Criterion, we’re looking at you).
Also, just so you know, news of that Australian quickie-film shot during the making of the play, “Tot Mom,” are overstated. Our sources told us that the public was never meant to see it and it was shot only for the cast. Don’t expect it to hit theaters.
Lastly, one other potential project is his long-gestating adaptation of John Barth’s novel, “The Sot-Weed Factor” — which lampoons picaresque novels such as “Tristram Shandy” and “Tom Jones.” Last we heard, he was thinking about turning it into a TV mini-series before his retirement which may or may not happen (maybe HBO?). Also, we reached out to Lionsgate and “Knockout” has no official release date yet despite initial reports — from us — that pegged it for an August release.