Movies
Steven Soderbergh is Developing a “Philosophical Sequel” to Pandemic Thriller ‘Contagion’
Released in 2011, Steven Soderbergh‘s thriller Contagion gained new relevance here in 2020 thanks to the eerie similarities to the real-life COVID-19 pandemic, shooting the movie to the top of VOD rental charts and spawning all kinds of tweets and think-piece articles. Now would be the time to make a sequel, it seems, and some sort of follow-up is indeed in the works.
Soderbergh spilled the beans in a chat with the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
“I’ve got a project in development that Scott Burns is working with me on, that’s a kind of philosophical sequel to Contagion, but in a different context,” Soderbergh told the podcast.
He added, “You’ll look at the two of them as kind of paired, but they have very different hair colors. So, Scott and I were talking about, ‘So, what’s the next iteration of a Contagion-type story?’ So we have been working on that. We should probably hot-foot it a little bit.”
Scott Z. Burns wrote Contagion, which starred Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law. In the film, “Healthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people find themselves in the midst of a pandemic as the CDC works to find a cure.”
Thanks to Indiewire for bringing this one to our attention.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallis.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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