Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
Related Articles
If you’re Oscar-winning auteur Steven Soderbergh – best known for such hard-hitting favorites as Sex, Lies & Videotape, Traffic, Kafka, King of the Hill, Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, Solaris, Bubble and The Limey (along with his dalliances in more mainstream fare such as the Ocean’s 11 and Magic Mike movies) – then you’ve got to be asking yourself right about now: ‘What’s next?’ After all, once you’ve basked in the afterglow of both mainstream and indie adoration, where can you possibly go next? Perhaps in the throes of a ‘Eureka!’ moment, Soderbergh has answered that existential cry of every artist that has scaled the highest of highs in the entertainment industry with but two magic words: ‘Television Miniseries.’
From our Contagion fans over at Variety comes the news today that director Steven Soderbergh is poised to make a triumphant splash on streaming service Max with no less than a six-part miniseries entitled Full Circle. Better news yet for admirers of some of the director’s more hard-hitting work on the screen, Full Circle promises to be a morally complex story of a kidnapping gone very wrong.
Featuring an all-star ensemble led by Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant and Dennis Quaid, Full Circle delves into an investigation of a kidnapping gone awry, all the while unfolding its story to reveal buried secrets in the world of modern day New York City.
Quizzed by Variety in a recent sit-down interview about the complex dynamics of Full Circle, Soderbergh was candid about what appealed to him about this twisty story from Ed Solomon, whom the director had worked with previously on No Sudden Move.
What I liked about “Full Circle” was you’ve got a family who has built this massive edifice and this fairly substantial economic eco-system on a lie,” explained Soderbergh. “And they’ve been willing to look beyond that because of the status and the comfort that they enjoy.
In the case of Claire Danes and Timothy Olyphant’s family, they are ostensibly running a family food business, which has this darker underbelly. Is there something about capitalism where these great fortunes have this polite edifice, but there’s something corrupt and polluted beneath them?”
Quizzed about the potential difficulties in selling a piece to audiences which veers away from some of the tropes and cliches of a typical Hollywood thriller, Soderbergh was pragmatic about Full Circle and its possible audience reaction: “We had a lot of discussions when we were going through the promotional materials, like the teaser and the trailer. I wanted them to be careful because this is a drama that has some sequences where a lot of things are happening. So how do we sell that as opposed to ‘it’s a non-stop thriller’? But in the world of telling an audience in 90 seconds what a six-hour show is about, you kind of end up in a default mode of making it feel like it’s hyperactive. There’s not a lot you can do. At the end of the day, if people tune and start watching it and aren’t engaged, it’s my fault.”
Steven Soderbergh’s Full Circle premieres on Max this July 13.
