The movie nobody wanted Steven Soderbergh to direct: “I had to wait for everyone else to disperse”
Steven Soderbergh might have a filmmaking addiction. He famously tried to quit the medium, announcing his ‘retirement’ in 2013, but made his return just four years later. He’s directed more movies than some people have seen. At the age of just 62 – which is basically a toddler in director years – who knows how many he’ll notch up by the time he finally steps away from the camera for good.
Considering how difficult it is to get a film off the ground, it’s a miracle Soderbergh has directed a single movie, let alone over 30. The auteur has run into various issues across his long and varied career. He was originally going to direct Moneyball before Bennett Miller ended up taking the reins. Then there’s the case of Out of Sight, an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard book of the same name. Soderbergh was eventually chosen to helm the project, but only after everyone else had turned it down.
“Sydney Pollack said George [Clooney] simply wasn’t a movie star. Barry Sonnenfeld said he didn’t understand the tone. I had to wait for everyone else to disperse, then I went in and made my pitch, because I knew it could be the perfect role for him,” the director told The Telegraph. “He played it perfectly. It’s the first film he made that when you watch it now you think, ‘Ah, there’s George Clooney, the movie star.’”
Clooney heads up this sexy crime comedy as Jack Foley, a so-called ‘gentleman bank robber’. He ends up entangled with the US Marshal Karen Sisco, played by Jennifer Lopez, after Sandra Bullock refused to audition for the part. As the pair embark on their steamy affair, both of their goals become more and more complicated. The rest of the cast is absolutely packed with stars with everyone from Ving Rhames to Viola Davis to Samuel L. Jackson turning up. It ended up being a modest hit at the box office, but went down much better with critics. It was nominated for two Oscars – ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ and ‘Best Editing’ – and, as Soderbergh mentioned, helped make Clooney a household name.
Given his recent track record, it’s easy to see why Universal Pictures were initially hesitant to give Soderbergh the job. His previous film, Gray’s Anatomy, had been an absolute disaster. It had only cost $350,000 to make, but somehow managed to less than a tenth of that back at the box office. This was a time before the director was a proven draw, before Ocean’s Eleven and Magic Mike were getting people through the doors at a healthy pace. He was very much an unproven commodity.
This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between actor and director. Clooney would of course go on to lead the ‘Ocean’s’ series, again playing a suave criminal. He would also appear in The Good German and Soderbergh’s remake of the classic Soviet science fiction movie Solaris. In the year 2000, the two men partnered up to form Section Eight Productions, which would go on to finance a number of movies, including Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Clooney’s directorial debut.
If the studio hadn’t taken a risk on Out of Sight, then this highly-profitable and successful partnership would never have happened. A proper sliding doors moment between two huge Hollywood names.
