Soderbergh's 21st century OUTBREAK
The Playlist have pointed me towards a 29.09.09 article explaining the origins of director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns' idea for their forthcoming virus movie Contaigon, a 21st century post-Swine Flu look at the Outbreak scenario which will film late this year...
...while making "The Informant!," he and the director began discussing a scene in which Scott Bakula's agent character sneezes, causing Whiteacre (Matt Damon) to go on a rant about who will pay for his getting sick, etc. Burns says he and Soderbergh began dissecting the topic of germs and how the nature of a virus could be used to deal with "issues of sovereignty" and as a metaphor for the way "information and misinformation travel" in contemporary society. Burns and Soderbergh developed the idea for a "virus movie" that Burns describes in "pitch meeting speak" as 'Traffic'meets 'Outbreak".Today, The Playlist say Sodebergh has secured the A-list cast of Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Marion Cotillard. Virus movies, in essence, are straight-laced zombie movies and I'm certain Soderbergh will hit the right social paranoia and creepy 'heading towards apocalypse' note with what is described as a 'four continent' tale. You will instantly know how effective it is if you get that uncomfortable claustrophobic feeling in the cinema that makes your brain work too much. You know the feeling I'm talking about - the one where you begin to imagination if the risk of getting a virus on your everyday commute to work is really worth leaving the house for. The one that makes you board up the windows, bolt the doors, cut all contact with friends and family, and yeah - forget any kind of sexual contact with a woman. You just don't know what shit they could carry. Or is that just me? Blame movies like Outbreak, Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later for how I feel on that one. Those movies were more effective than any serious government warning on Swine Flu.