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Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Steven Soderbergh made a near-perfect spy movie. Why hasn't anybody seen it?
Steven Soderbergh has spent his career making movies that go against the grain. He's made indie gems ("Sex, Lies, and Videotape," "The Girlfriend Experience"), off-kilter crime thrillers ("Out of Sight," "The Limey), movies that bring nuance to real-life issues ("Erin Brockovich," the Oscar-winning "Traffic,") and too-real disaster movies that have become even more relevant in retrospect ("Contagion"). When he did play the studio game, as he did with the "Ocean's Eleven" and "Magic Mike" franchises, his movies were made with such originality that you'd wonder why Hollywood hasn't made more like them. (Answer: there's only one Soderbergh.) Few can match Soderbergh's career in terms of diversity and volume: 2025 marks the ninth time in his career that he's released two movies in the same year. Still, Soderbergh has hit a snag lately. While his last two movies, "Presence" and "Black Bag," garnered positive to downright glowing reviews from critics, a lackluster performance at the box office resulted in both leaving theaters quickly. It happened even as "Black Bag," tied with his feature debut "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" as his best-reviewed movie ever, has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Both were right in Soderbergh's sweet spot, combining a high-end concept (a twisty ghost story, a twisty spy story) with name actors (Lucy Liu, Cate Blanchett, and Michael Fassbender) on a small or relatively economical budget ($2 million and $44 million, respectively). This kind of movie has historically been a winning formula for Soderbergh. Everyone recoups their investments, allowing him to make another one (or two) the next year. But as audiences have stopped flocking to movie theaters in droves and big-budget franchises have become the draw when they do, it's increasingly difficult for a mid-budget movie to succeed. And Soderbergh's latest batting average has shown that even he might struggle to revive the genre. Seeing "Black Bag" disappear from most theaters in just three weeks (it's now available on Video on Demand and hits Peacock on May 2) has Soderbergh questioning his future as a storyteller. "It's not fun to spend a lot of time and effort on something that just occupies zero cultural real estate," Soderbergh told Business Insider. "That's not why any filmmaker wants to make movies. You want as many people to see them as possible. I've really got to think deeply about what kind of material I can find that I'm excited by and has the potential to draw a bigger audience than the last two movies." One thing's for certain: the prolific filmmaker will keep going against the grain to find it. In Business Insider's latest Director's Chair interview, Soderbergh has a frank discussion about the future of movie theaters, his never-made "Logan Lucky" prequel, and why he's not surprised David Fincher is making a sequel to Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood." Business Insider: Before we get into the movie's specifics, give me your Monday morning quarterbacking of what the theatrical run of "Black Bag" was like. You made it for $44 million, taking in $36 million worldwide. Steven Soderbergh: It was frustrating. The people we needed to come out didn't come out. And unfortunately, it's impossible to really know why. My concern is that the rest of the industry looks at that result and just goes, "This is why we don't make movies in that budget range for that audience because they don't show up." And that's unfortunate, because that's the kind of movie I've made my whole career. That middle ground, which we all don't want to admit is disappearing, seems to be really disappearing. I mean, it's the best-reviewed movie I've ever made in my career, and we've got six beautiful people in it, and they all did every piece of publicity that we asked them to do and, you know, this is the result. So it's frustrating. I think it was on 2,000-plus screens for three weeks. In your eyes, did you want more runway, or did Focus Features do what it had to do? No. I think they did everything right. Going any wider wasn't going to solve the problem, obviously. They spent the money. I liked the campaign. They were incredibly supportive. I had a good experience with them making the movie. Everything went right except that people just didn't show up. The way the theatrical window has been shortened since COVID is Hollywood programming audiences to stay at home? I don't know. Again, how do you tease out the kind of data that you need to answer that question? Obviously, the topic that never goes away and never will go away is windowing. How do you determine — if people that were aware of "Black Bag" and had some interest in it, if they knew it was going to be 45 or 60 days before it showed up anywhere else, would they have gone? Or did it not matter? We don't know. That's the problem. And that becomes the $100 million question. People know it's out because of the marketing, so are they saying, "Well, I'm going to wait to see that at home?" But here's the thing, Steven: Then they're watching on PVOD, and they would pay as much at home as they did in the theater. Well, all I can tell you is Focus told me they will break even on this movie. I was worried. I don't like losing people's money. Especially when you want to work with them again. Yeah. But when I talked to [Focus Features chairman] Peter Kujawski the Monday after we opened he said, "We'll get out." Unfortunately, the people who write about the movie business aren't privy to how all of that downstream revenue works precisely, and that's why things are perceived as not turning a profit when actually they turn out to be profitable. He told me, "We're fine." But I won't know if any of that is true until I start getting statements, and then I'll be able to see how that world looks. I'll see exactly what they spent on P&A and as the PVOD numbers come in. So by the end of the year, I'll be able to tell if the movie turned a profit, and if so, how. And that's good information. Right. Because that's going to dictate how you want to move forward regarding the kind of movies you want to make. Yeah. It's really not fun when someone asks you, "What are you working on?" and you go, "Oh, I just made this thing," and they go, "Oh, did that come out?" You get tired of that. Let's talk a little about what actually happens in "Black Bag." The ending of George and Katherine embracing in bed confirmed for me that the events in the movie are very much a twisted foreplay for them. Was that how it was always written? It went through a couple of variations of the same idea. It was written initially to be in the bedroom. Then, while we were shooting it, I thought I wanted to do a version where he's making a meal for her because this cooking thing is also very intimate and very much part of their ritual. And then I saw that and it was okay. And I said, I want to go back to the version in the bedroom, but I said to [screenwriter] David [Koepp], I think the reason that I was moving it out of the bedroom was because it was missing just a tiny bit of a button and I couldn't articulate exactly what it was. David said, "I think I know what you mean." He sent me back a variation of the original version in the bedroom, but it had Katherine asking about the money, and that was the little thing, because it's a quiet runner through the movie that she's money-obsessed. That's when I was like, "That's it." After "The Christophers," do you know what you want to make next? What has the release of "Black Bag" made you feel? I don't know. We're finishing "The Christophers" now. Nobody has seen it. It's a single-source, independently financed movie. So I think the most likely course is it will premiere at a festival. Which one? I don't know. But beyond that, I don't know. I've got to figure that out. I'm agnostic in terms of where it shows up, theatrical versus streaming. But you can't keep making the same mistake over and over again. Do you have to go back to the epic route? Do you have the endurance, the heart, the willpower to do something like "Che" again? Physically, I do. Psychologically, though, it's really got to be something that deserves that kind of treatment and doesn't feel like Oscar bait. Is there anything you're developing currently that would have the potential like that at all? No. It does require an aspect of the grandiosity gene, you've got to think about yourself a certain way to want to go out and do those things. That is not my default mode. I have to work myself up to that because I don't have that kind of sense of my place. If I hadn't made "Che," I don't think I would have made "The Knick," which I think is the last epic thing that I've done. "Che" was good for me in that sense. But knowing what goes into that, it has got to be something that I feel really electrified by, and those are just hard to come by. Then you've got to cast Timothée Chalamet. Your wife, Jules Asner, wrote the screenplay for your 2017 movie, "Logan Lucky." When are you two going to stop messing around and give us a sequel? Oh, she's working on stuff. But is she working on another "Logan Lucky"? Well, we talked about it, but when that movie didn't perform well we had to put it away. We had it all set up. We had everybody willing. We were going to do the story of how Daniel Craig's character Joe Bang got into prison. We were going to do that whole story of how things got all fucked up. But you've got to have a hit movie if you want to make a sequel. So you had the cast attached? Everybody wanted to do it. The story was pretty funny. But can you admit that since that movie opened, it has had a second life through streaming? Yeah, and this is why I'm desperate for Warner Bros. to license "The Knick" to Netflix, because I think "The Knick" on Netflix would really go over well. Would that mean you've thrown your hat back in with doing another season of "The Knick"? No. I don't think there's any going back to that. What else is your wife working on? Rebecca Blunt [Jules Asner's pen name] and I have a very professional relationship, and you're never supposed to ask a writer how it's going. Are you as surprised as we are that David Fincher is going to do a "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" sequel? No, because of Brad [Pitt]. I think they're always on the lookout for something to do together, and so this was, it sounds like, an unusual set of circumstances where Quentin decided he didn't want to do it and Brad asked him, "Can I show it to David?" and he said sure, and David read it and said let's do it. That seems to be what happened. That's not surprising at all. What's surprising is Quentin's agreeability. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. "Black Bag" is available On Demand and digital rental. It will be available to stream on Peacock starting May 2. Read the original article on Business Insider
Epoch Times
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
‘Off The Record': Andie MacDowell's Oldest Daughter Hits the Big Screen
R | 1h 35m | Drama | 2025 Model-actress Andie MacDowell broke into the movies with 'Sex, Lies, and Videotape' (1989) and hit stardom with 'Groundhog Day' (1993). MacDowell has two daughters, Margaret Qualley, whose acting career is now well established, and sister Rainey Qualley, a singer-actress. Little sister Margaret's got actor animal-magnetism in spades; big sister Rainey's got musical chops plus mom's bombshell model looks. That is to say, Margaret is no slouch in the looks department either, and Rainey can act—she just needs a better vehicle than 'Off The Record,' the feature debut of Kirsten Foe, who wrote and directed. Astor Grey (Rainey Qualley), in "Off The Record." Quiver Distribution Casting Couch, Kinda Rainey stars as Astor Grey, an aspiring L.A. singer-songwriter who pays the rent with commercial acting, in addition to gigging. Brandyn Verge (Ryan Hansen), a not-quite-washed-up, still fairly famous rock star, notices Astor and reaches out to her on social media. Naturally flattered, Astor agrees to a date—she's starstruck and 25 years old. She's also not immune to the temptation of knowing how effectively one hand washing the other can get immediate results in showbiz. She lets the date move way too fast. Brandyn Verge (Ryan Hansen, L) and Hal (Billy Gibbons), in "Off The Record." Quiver Distribution Red flags appear almost immediately. Brandyn promises to kick Astor's career into overdrive. The next day on a sight-seeing date, he cluelessly runs his fancy red Porsche out of gas in the middle of the desert. It's not entirely cringe, because rock band ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons gives them a ride to a gas station. Gibbons doesn't play his rock star self, but it's a fun cameo. Another fun cameo is hall-of-fame quarterback Peyton Manning as a commercial director. Related Stories 5/14/2023 9/23/2019 Astor's bestie Noelle (Olivia Sui), and her mom, Rosemary (Julia Campbell) metaphorically put a megaphone in Astor's face and scream about all the red flags they're seeing, but Astor is already lost in euphoric, young-woman-powerful-older-man, codependent, people-pleasing, maybe-I'll-get-famous mode. Brandyn can do no wrong, even when he drunkenly rag-dolls out of his Porsche door and pukes on her boots. Nice. Even when her manager Kate (Rebecca De Mornay) sits Astor down with one of Brandyn's exes, who he took for everything she had, Astor has her fingers in her ears, going 'la-la-la-la-la!!' Will Brandyn go to rehab? Will he say 'No, no, no'? Will he invite Astor on a tour as an opening act, proceed to shamelessly lounge around with a groupie on his private jet, and throw Astor's new lyrics out a train window? Will Astor sign a contract? Will she break free of this idiot? 'Off the Record' It's almost the perfect break-out role for Qualley, who's also got a recording career, where she goes by her full name (and stage name), Rainsford. She's got a striking singing voice that ranges from a raspy alto to pop diva, and she's a bit reminiscent of 'Transformers'-era Megan Fox. Her acting is a little thin here, but with a more experienced director, it's clear there's plenty more talent to be trotted out at a later date. While she doesn't have her sister's quirky mega-charisma, hers will nevertheless most likely be a slam-dunk film career, but this wasn't quite the movie-basketball to insure a place on Hollywood's A-list. Astor Grey (Rainey Qualley) performs, in "Off The Record." Quiver Distribution 'Off the Record' also features two songs by Qualley: 'Love Me Like You Hate Me,' and '2 Cents.' These singles will be included in her upcoming album, which will be released alongside the film. New York's highest court recently overturned former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's 2020 conviction. The timing of this new indie film about a young woman trying to make it in the record industry with the help of an abusive narcissist is suspiciously coincidental. Intentionally timed or not, 'Off the Record' takes the opportunity to illustrate the trafficking element that continues to plague the entertainment industry. It's a commendably heavy-hitting and necessary topic. Unfortunately 'Off the Record' remains lightweight fare. 'Off The Record' is set to premiere simultaneously in theaters and on digital platforms on May 2. Promotional poster for "Off The Record." Quiver Distribution 'Off The Record' Director: Kirsten Foe Starring: Rainey Qualley, Ryan Hansen, Olivia Sui, Julia Campbell MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hours, 35 minutes Release Date: May 2, 2025 Rating: 2 1/2 stars out of 5 Would you like to see other kinds of arts and culture articles? Please email us your story ideas or feedback at
Business Insider
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
Steven Soderbergh will keep innovating
Steven Soderbergh has spent his career making movies that go against the grain. He's made indie gems ("Sex, Lies, and Videotape," "The Girlfriend Experience"), off-kilter crime thrillers ("Out of Sight," "The Limey), movies that bring nuance to real-life issues ("Erin Brockovich," the Oscar-winning "Traffic,") and too-real disaster movies that have become even more relevant in retrospect (" Contagion"). When he did play the studio game, as he did with the "Ocean's Eleven" and "Magic Mike" franchises, his movies were made with such originality that you'd wonder why Hollywood hasn't made more like them. (Answer: there's only one Soderbergh.) It's a career that few can match when it comes to diversity and volume: 2025 marks the ninth time in Soderbergh's career that he's had two movies released in the same year. But Soderbergh has hit a snag lately. While both of his last two movies, "Presence" and "Black Bag," garnered positive to downright glowing reviews from critics —"Black Bag" is tied with his feature debut "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" as his best-reviewed movie ever, with a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — lackluster performance at the box office resulted in both leaving theaters quickly. Both were right in Soderbergh's sweet spot, combining a high-end concept (a twisty ghost story, a twisty spy story) with name actors (Lucy Liu, Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender) on a small or relatively economical budget ($2 million and $44 million, respectively). This kind of movie has historically been a winning formula for Soderbergh, one in which everyone recoups on their investments, allowing him to go make another one (or two) the next year. But as audiences have stopped showing up to movie theaters in droves and big-budget franchises have became the draw when they do, it's become increasingly difficult for a mid-budget movie to succeed. And Soderbergh's latest batting average has shown that even he might struggle to revive the genre. Seeing "Black Bag" disappear from most theaters in just three weeks (it's now available on Video on Demand and hits Peacock on May 2) has Soderbergh questioning his future as a storyteller. "It's not fun to spend a lot of time and effort on something that just occupies zero cultural real estate," Soderbergh told Business Insider. "That's not why any filmmaker wants to make movies. You want as many people to see them as possible. I've really got to think deeply about what kind of material I can find that I'm excited by and has the potential to draw a bigger audience than the last two movies." One thing's for certain: the prolific filmmaker will keep going against the grain to find it. In Business Insider's latest Director's Chair interview, Soderbergh has a frank discussion about the future of movie theaters, his never-made "Logan Lucky" prequel, and why he's not surprised David Fincher is making a sequel to Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood." Business Insider: Before we get into the specifics of the movie itself, give me your Monday morning quarterbacking of what the theatrical run of "Black Bag" was like. You made it for $44 million and it took in $36 million worldwide. Steven Soderbergh: It was frustrating. The people we needed to come out didn't come out. And unfortunately, it's impossible to really know why. My concern is that the rest of the industry looks at that result and just goes, "This is why we don't make movies in that budget range for that audience because they don't show up." And that's unfortunate, because that's the kind of movie I've made my whole career. That middle ground, which we all don't want to admit is disappearing, seems to be really disappearing. I mean, it's the best-reviewed movie I've ever made in my career, and we've got six beautiful people in it, and they all did every piece of publicity that we asked them to do and, you know, this is the result. So it's frustrating. I think it was on 2,000-plus screens for three weeks. In your eyes, did you want more runway, or did Focus Features do what it had to do? No. I think they did everything right. Going any wider wasn't going to solve the problem, obviously. They spent the money. I liked the campaign. They were incredibly supportive. I had a good experience with them making the movie. Everything went right except that people just didn't show up. The way the theatrical window has been shortened since COVID, is Hollywood programming audiences to stay at home? I don't know. Again, how do you tease out the kind of data that you need to answer that question? Obviously, the topic that never goes away and never will go away is windowing. How do you determine — if people that were aware of "Black Bag" and had some interest in it, if they knew it was going to be 45 or 60 days before it showed up anywhere else, would they have gone? Or did it not matter? We don't know. That's the problem. And that becomes the $100 million question. People know it's out because of the marketing, so are they saying to themselves, "Well, I'm going to wait to see that at home?" But here's the thing, Steven: Then they're watching on PVOD, and they would be paying as much at home as they did in the theater in that case. Well, all I can tell you is Focus told me they will break even on this movie. I was worried. I don't like losing people's money. Especially when you want to work with them again. Yeah. But when I talked to [Focus Features chairman] Peter Kujawski the Monday after we opened he said, "We'll get out." Unfortunately, the people who write about the movie business aren't privy to how all of that downstream revenue works precisely, and that's why things are perceived as not turning a profit when actually they turn out to be profitable. He told me, "We're fine." But I won't know if any of that is true until I start getting statements, and then I'll be able to see how that world looks. I'll see exactly what they spent on P&A and as the PVOD numbers come in. So by the end of the year, I'll be able to tell if the movie turned a profit, and if so, how. And that's good information. Right. Because that's going to dictate how you want to move forward in regards to the kind of movies you want to make. Yeah. It's really not fun when someone asks you, "What are you working on?" and you go, "Oh, I just made this thing," and they go, "Oh, did that come out?" You get tired of that. Let's talk a little about what actually happens in "Black Bag." The ending of George and Katherine embracing in bed confirmed for me that the events in the movie are very much a twisted foreplay for them. Was that how it was always written? It went through a couple of variations of the same idea. It was written initially to be in the bedroom. Then, while we were shooting it, I thought I wanted to do a version where he's making a meal for her because this cooking thing is also very intimate and very much part of their ritual. And then I saw that and it was okay. And I said, I want to go back to the version in the bedroom, but I said to [screenwriter] David [Koepp], I think the reason that I was moving it out of the bedroom was because it was missing just a tiny bit of a button and I couldn't articulate exactly what it was. David said, "I think I know what you mean." He sent me back a variation of the original version in the bedroom, but it had Katherine asking about the money, and that was the little thing, because it's a quiet runner through the movie that she's money-obsessed. That's when I was like, "That's it." After " The Christophers" do you know what you want to make next? What has the release of "Black Bag" made you feel? I don't know. We're finishing "The Christophers" now. Nobody has seen it. It's a single-source, independently financed movie. So I think the most likely course is it will premiere at a festival. Which one? I don't know. But beyond that, I don't know. I've got to figure that out. I'm agnostic in terms of where it shows up, theatrical versus streaming. But you can't keep making the same mistake over and over again. Do you have to go back to the epic route? Do you have the endurance, the heart, the willpower to do something like "Che" again? Physically, I do. Psychologically, though, it's really got to be something that deserves that kind of treatment and doesn't feel like Oscar bait. Is there anything you're developing currently that would have the potential like that at all? No. It does require an aspect of the grandiosity gene, you've got to think about yourself a certain way to want to go out and do those things. That is not my default mode. I have to work myself up to that because I don't have that kind of sense of my place. If I hadn't made "Che," I don't think I would have made "The Knick," which I think is the last epic thing that I've done. "Che" was good for me in that sense. But knowing what goes into that, it has got to be something that I feel really electrified by, and those are just hard to come by. Then you've got to cast Timothée Chalamet. Oh, she's working on stuff. But is she working on another "Logan Lucky"? Well, we talked about it, but when that movie didn't perform well we had to put it away. We had it all set up. We had everybody willing. We were going to do the story of how Daniel Craig's character Joe Bang got into prison. We were going to do that whole story of how things got all fucked up. But you've got to have a hit movie if you want to make a sequel. Everybody wanted to do it. The story was pretty funny. But can you admit that since that movie opened, it has had a second life through streaming? Yeah, and this is why I'm desperate for Warner Bros. to license "The Knick" to Netflix, because I think "The Knick" on Netflix would really go over well. No. I don't think there's any going back to that. What else is your wife working on? Rebecca Blunt [Jules Asner's pen name] and I have a very professional relationship, and you're never supposed to ask a writer how it's going. No, because of Brad [Pitt]. I think they're always on the lookout for something to do together, and so this was, it sounds like, an unusual set of circumstances where Quentin decided he didn't want to do it and Brad asked him, "Can I show it to David?" and he said sure, and David read it and said let's do it. That seems to be what happened. That's not surprising at all. What's surprising is Quentin's agreeability. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. "Black Bag" is available On Demand and digital rental. It will be available to stream on Peacock starting May 2.
The Independent
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Steven Soderbergh: ‘Erin Brockovich wouldn't get made today… unless you get Timothée Chalamet'
I don't think audiences are even aware of who I am,' Steven Soderbergh tells me, with nary a hint of self-deprecation. And perhaps he's right. Soderbergh has been making feature films for more than 35 years, and very famous ones at that, but it's debatable whether the average person on the street could pick him out of a line-up. Many of the directors he came up alongside – Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, the Coen brothers – are now brands unto themselves. Soderbergh, with his slippery CV full of pop culture touchstones, strange tangents and admirable failures, is more of a question mark. Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Magic Mike, Ocean's Eleven, Out of Sight? You know 'em. The man behind them? Likely not. Since 1989's Sex, Lies, and Videotape made him the youngest solo filmmaker to win the Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival (he was, to your probable horror, just 26), he has danced between roles in and outside of Hollywood. He's been an Oscar darling (Traffic and Erin Brockovich both earned Best Picture nods in 2001, with Soderbergh taking home the Best Director prize for the former), a renegade experimentalist (Mosaic, a seven-hour murder mystery starring Sharon Stone, was released as an interactive mobile app in 2017), and cinema's shortest-lived retiree (he flashily announced in 2013 that the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra would be his final film – he's since directed 11 more.) But despite rebelling against expectations throughout his career, he's also a realist. 'Practically speaking,' the 62-year-old says, 'if you make a lot of movies that people don't go see, you don't get to make a lot of movies. And right now I really need to think about what kinds of movies I'll make going forward. I'm not interested in continually working on things where, if it comes up in conversation, people go… 'oh, did that come out?'' Soderbergh is in London, where he's editing his new film The Christophers, a black comedy about art forgery starring Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel. If all goes to plan, it'll be out later this year, making it the third Soderbergh film to be released within 12 months. Presence, a haunted house horror shot from the perspective of the ghost, arrived in January; Black Bag, a star-studded espionage thriller with Cate Blanchett, was released in March. Such a busy run would typically be cause for celebration, but the Soderbergh I meet today is anxious and slightly crestfallen. Despite sterling reviews ('immensely pleasurable,' went our critic Clarisse Loughrey; 'it's renewed my faith in modern cinema,' went Vulture 's Angelica Jade Bastién), Black Bag collapsed at the box office, and has grossed just $35m to date on a budget of at least $50m. Soderbergh, wearing thick black spectacles and dressed in a grey suit jacket over a fire alarm-red T-shirt, admits to being heartbroken. 'This is the kind of film I made my career on,' he explains. 'And if a mid-level budget, star-driven movie can't seem to get people over the age of 25 years old to come out to theatres – if that's truly a dead zone – then that's not a good thing for movies. What's gonna happen to the person behind me who wants to make this kind of film?' Once the dust had settled on Black Bag 's opening weekend last month, its gross became a hot topic within the industry, he says. 'I know for a fact, having talked to somebody who works at another studio, that the Monday after Black Bag opened, the conversation in the morning meeting was: 'What does this mean when you can't get a movie like this to perform?'. And that's frustrating.' Today, Soderbergh is promoting Black Bag 's home video release – it's available on-demand now – not only because he believes in the film but because data has shown it'll make the bulk of its money outside of cinemas. 'Everybody at Focus Features [the film's distributor] has assured me that ultimately Black Bag will be fine and will turn a profit,' he says, 'but the bottom line is that we need to figure out a way to cultivate this audience for movies that are in this mid-range, that aren't fantasy spectacles or low-budget horror movies.' He sighs. 'They're movies for grown-ups, and those can't just go away.' I've made a lot of things where people don't see them when they come out, or they're not happy with them when they come out, then time goes on and they've gone, like… oh, actually… People even like Ocean's Twelve now! Punctuating all of this is that Black Bag is Soderbergh's best film in years. It's a tight, twisty 90-minute thriller in which Blanchett and Michael Fassbender play married spies Kathryn and George, one of whom may be a traitor involved in the theft of a dangerous malware device. The plot unfurls during two heated dinner-party set pieces, the pair inviting a collection of vaguely untrustworthy guests (among them a magnificently sly secret agent played by Tom Burke and a shifty psychiatrist played by Naomie Harris) to spill their guts about the theft. Surveillance cameras are hacked. Lie detectors are deployed. Everyone is ludicrously beautiful and outfitted in expensive leather. It's sexy, punchy, classic filmmaking. That few were convinced to leave their houses to actually see Black Bag feels depressingly significant. That said, Soderbergh has been here before. Sex, Lies, and Videotape, a psychological drama about a married man who records women discussing their sex lives, was made for just over a million dollars and transformed the then-unknown freelance film editor into a superstar. But his follow-ups – the offbeat biopic Kafka and the treacly coming-of-age tale King of the Hill – were bombs, and Soderbergh spent much of the Nineties in a tailspin. He describes The Underneath, a confused 1995 thriller starring Peter Gallagher, as a 'wake-up call'. The Underneath was traditionally told and directorially anonymous. He's since called it 'dead on arrival'. Moving forward, he'd emphasise sleek edits, chilly interiors and unconventional structures, albeit disguised by the presence of capital-M movie stars. Out of Sight (1998), his post-fallow period breakthrough, starred George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez as a thief and an investigator entangled in a romantic cat-and-mouse game. It didn't set the box office alight, but it earned enough industry goodwill to put him back on top. His subsequent run was creatively if not always commercially dizzying, though it contained some major box-office successes: the sharp and brutal Terence Stamp hitman movie The Limey (1999); ensemble drug tale Traffic (2000); the sunny legal drama Erin Brockovich (2000), which won Julia Roberts an Oscar; Ocean's Eleven (2001); his elegant remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (2002); the divisive, self-referential caper Ocean's Twelve (2004). Few of them, he thinks, would exist today. ' Erin Brockovich wouldn't get made today; Traffic wouldn't get made. Unless you get Timothée Chalamet who, god bless him, seems to be interested in doing different kinds of movies. But that window is getting smaller and smaller for filmmakers to climb through.' Since the early 2010s, Soderbergh has primarily worked within genre film, following a bad experience on a two-part, nearly three-hour-long biopic about Che Guevara starring Benicio del Toro. 'I watched people on that movie turn into zombies and roadkill because it was so stressful and physically difficult to get through,' he says with a rueful laugh. 'It cured me of wanting to make anything that you could label as 'important'.' He'd go on to make Magic Mike (2012), inspired by Channing Tatum's brief time working as a stripper, along with the eerily prescient pandemic film Contagion (2011) that everyone went back to during Covid, the pulpy thriller Side Effects (2013) and the frothy comedy Logan Lucky (2017), starring Tatum, Adam Driver and Daniel Craig. 'Genre films are the best and most efficient delivery system for any idea, because the audience shows up going, 'Oh, I'm going to see a comedy, or a horror, or a thriller', and you can pack it below the surface with all the things that you're really interested in talking about. Everybody wins.' This, though, has become trickier lately. Several of Soderbergh's recent projects – notably the crime drama No Sudden Move starring Don Cheadle, Jon Hamm and Julia Fox – have flown under the radar, others you may not realise exist. One of my recent favourites of his was Let Them All Talk, a spiky comedy in which a novelist (Meryl Streep) sets sail on the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner with two friends she's written about (Dianne Wiest and Candice Bergen). Released on the US streaming platform HBO Max in December 2020, it has – bizarrely – never come out in Britain. 'This is one of the results of this weird world we live in now,' he says. 'If you're in the UK, you can't see Let Them All Talk.' He says the explanation is boring – something about distribution deals between HBO and Sky – but that he is baffled by it. 'They paid good money for a film that isn't available to be seen in a market that seems really tailor made to see it,' he says, exasperated. 'That doesn't seem to me like a good business model.' His hope, with Black Bag at least, is that people will discover it over time. 'I've made a lot of things where people don't see them when they come out, or they're not happy with them when they come out, then time goes on and they've gone, like… oh, actually …' He smirks. 'People even like Ocean's Twelve now!' He thinks back to Out of Sight, which was by no means a big money-maker and briefly had many questioning whether Clooney and Lopez were going to make it as movie stars. 'Very quickly it was looked upon kindly and imbued with the qualities of being a hit when it actually wasn't a hit,' he remembers. 'So maybe two years from now people will go, 'Oh, Black Bag – that was a hit!' Soderbergh has always had a healthy cynicism when it comes to the film industry, and has often talked about walking away from filmmaking entirely even after he returned to directing following his brief quasi-retirement. So it's somewhat jarring to see him on the defensive today, and worried about whether there's a space for him in the future, or the films he likes to make. 'I've got a lot to think about,' he says, softly. 'I think The Christophers is going to be fine, but after that… I can't go make another movie whose target audience is the same as Black Bag 's. That's just not an option.' He says he's not angry, that the job of an artist is to adapt to the world around them, but that he has been destabilised. 'I don't need any more indie cred, you know what I mean?' he says. 'I need to make things that people go see.' After we say our goodbyes, I start to feel destabilised, too. If one of our greatest living filmmakers, who's always seemed so cocksure about his vision, is suddenly feeling professionally adrift… well, it can't be good for those of us who love movies.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Celebrity hair stylist Fabio Sementilli's wife found guilty in his 2017 stabbing death
A Los Angeles jury on Friday found the wife of celebrity hair stylist Fabio Sementilli guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in his 2017 stabbing death. Sementilli, 49, was found with stab wounds to his neck, face and chest on the patio of his home in Woodland Hills, California, on Jan. 23, 2017. Monica Sementilli's sentencing is scheduled for June 23. A new "20/20" episode, "Sex, Knives, and Videotape", airing Friday, April 11, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu, examines the case. You can also get more behind-the-scenes of each week's episode by listening to "20/20: The After Show" weekly series right on your 20/20 podcast feed on Mondays, hosted by "20/20" co-anchor Deborah Roberts. Prosecutors said Monica Sementilli and her lover, Robert Baker, were having an affair and conspired to kill Fabio so the couple could be together and collect life insurance money. As the pair awaited trial, Baker decided in 2023 to plead "no contest" to all charges relating to Fabio's murder, including the special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait. Pleading no contest meant Baker did not contest the charges and accepted the facts alleged by prosecutors without admitting to being guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. MORE: Betrayal turned deadly: The killing of a celebrity hair stylist In October, another man -- Christopher Austin -- was arrested in connection with the case. Testifying for the prosecution during Monica's trial in March, he told jurors that he and Baker stabbed Sementilli to death after she left the door of their home unlocked. When questioned by the defense, Austin denied that he had been offered a deal by prosecutors in exchange for his testimony. Austin was convicted of second-degree murder and personal use of a knife in Sementelli's killing. He faces 16 years in prison when he's sentenced in April. Friday's verdict may offer some degree of justice for the Sementilli family. In interviews prior to the jury's decision, they told "20/20" that they still feel his absence deeply. Sementelli's son Luigi, who is Monica's stepson said that he takes comfort from his father's Rolex watch. "He wore this all the time. He wore it when he died," he told "20/20." "I wear it for special occasions when I wanna feel close to him. It's probably my most -- one of my most cherished--- possessions." Sementelli's sister Mirella said she takes comfort in his memory. "It's hard to dig deep for a silver lining here. No, it's -- his legacy will live on," she told "20/20." "We were blessed to have him, even for a short time." Celebrity hair stylist Fabio Sementilli's wife found guilty in his 2017 stabbing death originally appeared on
