Steven Soderbergh Emerges from Retirement Once and For All — With Channing Tatum

In news bound to inspire countless “I told you so’s,” Steven Soderbergh is finally coming out of filmmaking retirement to helm his first big screen movie since the 2013 Hitchcockian thriller “Side Effects,” which he once vowed would be his last. The director, of course, hasn’t remained all that inactive in the three years since pledging to leave movies behind. He’s continued to impress as the creator and director of Cinemax’s “The Knick,” but the news is a great sigh of relief for all the fans who have waited for a new slice of Soderbergh in cinemas.

READ MORE: The 8 Most Daring Career Moves of Steven Soderbergh

Soderbergh will make his comeback with “Lucky Logan,” according to a story first reported by Variety. No plot synopsis has been revealed, though it is confirmed that Gregory Jacobs is attached to produce and Channing Tatum is on board to star. The film will be the fourth collaboration between Tatum and the director after “Haywire,” “Side Effects” and “Magic Mike.” It’s also being reported that a huge bidding war between major studios, including Warner Bros., Sony and Fox, is taking place to acquire the film.

While all other details surrounding “Lucky Logan” are being kept under wraps, the script was clearly great enough to convince Soderbergh to return to feature filmmaking. Just last October, the director gave a no-holds-barred interview with The Hollywood Reporter about how he would never return to movies again, preferring instead to remain in the auteur television business (he has the Starz drama “The Girlfriend Experience” premiering in April and the HBO pilot “Mosaic” in the pipeline, too).

“Just from my very personal, subjective point of view, I don’t have an interest in making another theatrical film unless my attitude changes or the business changes,” he told THR. “There are a series of things that have contributed to it — I think the audiences have a played a role, the studios have a role in it — but film is increasingly fear-based in its decision-making, and that’s not a good base to be creative.”

Based on these comments, it’s safe to assume that the studio that acquires the film will give Soderbergh creative control.

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