When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020,Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 filmContagionseemed like a prophecy. The film details the spread of a deadly virus originating from a single place, almost like what happened with COVID-19. There have been talks about a sequel, and in the wake of what happened during the pandemic, Soderbergh does not want to make the film for the sake of making it. “I don’t want to torture people,” he toldOne Decisionpodcast. The director feels responsible for making something that doesn’t seem like it’s relishing the pain brought on by public health menaces or giving the public some ideas. “There are scenarios that you could come up with that I would categorize as irresponsible. You know, that I would go, ‘That’s a big idea, but I’m not sure I want to put that idea out there, frankly.’ I do think about that,” he admitted. However, it would be entirely different if it were to be done. “We talk about it and have come up with some terrifying ideas. There would have to be, I think, a plot that doesn’t feel predictable,” Soderbergh said.
The film follows Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow), who returns to the US after a Hong Kong business trip. A few days later, she starts feeling ill and dies, and her son later dies from the same illness, too. Soon after, chaos descends when everyone learns of a disease as a full-blown viral outbreak decimates the population. From mass panic to looting and conspiracy theories, the film touches on some predictable reactions during pandemics. Apart from Paltrow, the filmfeatured a star-studded cast, includingMatt Damon,Laurence Fishburne,Jude Law,Kate Winslet,Bryan Cranston,Eliott Gould, andMarion Cotillard.
The ‘Contagion’ Sequel Would Be “Philosophical”
The first film pretty much covered everything there was to cover about a viral pandemic. When he appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcastin 2020, Soderbergh revealedhe was working withContagionwriterScott Z. Burnson “a kind of philosophical sequel toContagion, but in a different context.” In a recent interview with Variety, he said the sequel needs tofind a “new gimmick,“explaining:
“It’s got to be something that people go, ‘Oh, that could happen.’ Maybe. It would need to be something that’s going on right now that just needs a tiny little shove to turn into a huge thing. To me, Contagion was a horror movie. So the trick would be, can you find something as scary that’s real? There’s certainly a case to be made, especially in the West, for the long-term effects, environmentally, of what we eat, what we breathe. As is well known, we have plastic in our blood now. It’s in our brains. This is a new thing that’s got to have a pretty serious effect. There are lots of possibilities.”
Contagionis available to rent or buy on VOD.
Sources:One Decision,Happy Sad Confused,Variety
