Steven Soderbergh clarifies what his stance on that whole retirement thing

Back in 2009 when asked by Esquire if he was going to make movies until his death, Steven Soderbergh gave this response:

“I’m 45 now. When I turn 51, that’ll be 25 years. And that’s a lot of time to do one thing. And it’ll be, like, 30 movies. And that’s enough. I don’t want to have that falloff. I want to go out with Abbey Road.”

So by that logic when it comes to Soderbergh’s so-called “retirement”, he really meant that it would be more like 2015 when he stopped with movies. We’ve talked about it for awhile, I’m guilty myself of it. But then came CONTAGION, MAGIC MIKE, and soon to be SIDE EFFECTS and the HBO biopic, BEHIND THE CANDELABRA. When the director was recently interviewed by Vulture, the first thing out of the gate had to do with his retirement status:

“Just to be clear, I won’t be directing “cinema,” for lack of a better word. But I still plan to direct — theater stuff, and I’d do a TV series if something great were to come along.”

There you have it folks. Soderbergh will move on from cinema to more low-key projects like theater and TV. The whole interview is a good detailed read, if you are so inclined check it out here.