Update: Adam Driver has joined the cast and Seth MacFarlane is in talks, but Michael Shannon has dropped out due to his commitment on Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water, Deadline reports.
Steven Soderbergh never “left,” of course. He’s directed twenty episodes of give-or-take-one-hour television (The Knick) since the summer of 2014, helmed some sort of prestige-cable project (Mosaic) that may or may not be a movie, shot and edited Magic Mike XXL, and has kept up the producing game, most notably with Starz’s widely acclaimed The Girlfriend Experience. Those who’ve wanted Soderbergh in the last few years haven’t been left wanting.
And yet his return to feature filmmaking has been desired all the while, and so this next bit of news is very exciting. (Especially if you, like I, don’t much care for The Knick — but that’s another discussion altogether.) After he declared a February story about the Channing Tatum– and Matt Damon-led Hillbilly Heist “wrong” in a since-deleted tweet, word has come, via THR, that the project does exist — albeit as Logan Lucky and without Damon. It instead pairs Tatum with Michael Shannon and might live up to that originally reported title, being the story of “brothers who plan a heist during a high-profile NASCAR race”; Riley Keough (The Girlfriend Experience, Mad Max: Fury Road) is also involved, albeit in a currently undisclosed role.
That’s scant information, sure, but given the level of anticipation surrounding a new Soderbergh feature, we’re plenty glad to have this much. Filmnation will sell international rights at Cannes, so here’s hoping some more — not too more — soon becomes evident.