Deadline is reporting that Warner Bros. have won the race to pick up Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming viral-outbreak action-thriller “Contagion.”
Even though Participant Media were ready to co-finance and carry the $60 million budget alone, WB have now beat out several other studios including Summit Entertainment to come aboard. The film is from a script by “The Informant!” scribe Scott Z. Burns and already has the likes of Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law attached to star, which was one of the reported major selling points. Warners also backed, “The Informant!,” “The Good German” and the “Ocean’s” franchise in recent years.
Damon meanwhile is set to reunite with BFF Ben Affleck for an as of yet named production banner. A first-look deal with WB is already set to be finalized for the duo, who broke out together in the 90’s with “Good Will Hunting” and were behind the television show “Project Greenlight.”
Both actors have been working with the studio lately and have presumably liked what they’ve seen ,with Damon starring in “The Informant,” “Invictus”and “Hereafter” while Affleck’s sophomore directorial effort “The Town” was with the studio.