Deadline is reporting that Warner Bros. have won the race to pick up Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming viral-outbreak action-thriller “Contagion.”
Even though Participant Media were ready to co-finance and carry the $60 million budget alone, WB have now beat out several other studios including Summit Entertainment to come aboard. The film is from a script by “The Informant!” scribe Scott Z. Burns and already has the likes of Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law attached to star, which was one of the reported major selling points. Warners also backed, “The Informant!,” “The Good German” and the “Ocean’s” franchise in recent years.
Damon meanwhile is set to reunite with BFF Ben Affleck for an as of yet named production banner. A first-look deal with WB is already set to be finalized for the duo, who broke out together in the 90’s with “Good Will Hunting” and were behind the television show “Project Greenlight.”
Both actors have been working with the studio lately and have presumably liked what they’ve seen ,with Damon starring in “The Informant,” “Invictus”and “Hereafter” while Affleck’s sophomore directorial effort “The Town” was with the studio.
i like this. bring back the glory days. ben affleck is still the shit in my book. fuck the haters.
Why does no one talk about the fact that Affleck and Damon have never written together again after winning the Oscar for Good Will Hunting?
It seems obvious to me that they want to avoid the hype of trying to follow their first film which one the big one…Anyway, I just think it would be a question they would get all the time, but no one seems to care.
Nah, it's all about different lives and career paths that have led them in very opposite directions and schedules.
Why write another screenplay with your buddy from highschool/college — which you've already won the highest achievement for there is, the Oscar — when you can take a masterclass in filmmaking by working with Scorsese, DeNiro, Soderbergh, Clint Eastwood, etc.
Damon wants to direct.
While Affleck is already writing and directing on his own.
The script and Oscar was a way in, a foot in the door so they could do whatever they wanted. Why go back into a dark room to write?
That said, they eventually will, but you can see why they've capitalized on far more exciting opportunites.
It makes absolute sense.