Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender join Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller Black Bag project, which boasts a script by David Koepp and will be set and shot in the UK.
Remember around a decade ago when Steven Soderberg told us he was retired from directing? The Sex, Lies And Videotape filmmaker was clearly in a pretty disillusioned state with the moviemaking business, but he’d eventually reverse that decision and we’re all the luckier for it.
Steven Soderbergh’s last decade as a filmmaker has given us some remarkable films, from Logan Lucky to No Sudden Move, by way of Unsane and Let Them All Talk. That’s to name just four of the ten feature films that Soderbergh has directed since he ended his self-imposed retirement a decade ago.
He’s nothing if not prolific, and to prove that point we’ve got a duo of films on the horizon that will see him collaborate with David Koepp.
Koepp is one of Hollywood’s most revered working writers, having scripted 1993’s Jurassic Park, not to mention Spider-Man, War Of The Worlds and Mission: Impossible. Their next collaboration is Presence, a supernatural thriller due out this year starring Lucy Lui and Julia Fox.
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It looks like Soderbergh and Koepp have spent some of their time together bashing more ideas around, however as it’s been announced at The Hollywood Reporter that following Presence (and their collaboration on 2022’s Kimi) they’ve also re-teamed once more for Black Bag, a project which is going before studios and streamers this week as the director seeks financing for the project.
With Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender signed up to play the leads and shooting set to take place in filmmaker-friendly London, we can’t imagine that this one will struggle for financing.
Still, should that prove to be the case, Soderbergh has proved to be adroit at rustling up funds outside the studio system, especially over the last decade. If they get really pushed for cash, they can just film the whole thing on an iPhone like he famously did with Unsane.
Black Bag is said to be a spy thriller set in London. Beyond that, details are being kept under wraps. Shooting is set for May, so if all goes well, Black Bag should be in front of your eyeballs sometime next year. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
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