Steven Soderbergh is one of the greatest filmmakers working today, with filmography filled with studio crowd pleasers and more unconventional experimental movies. The directors latest film, Logan Lucky, came out earlier this month; and while it was praised by critics, not a lot of people went out to the theater to see it. However, the movie has its fans and that's alright with Soderbergh. He mostly makes movies more for himself. Like sex! If he accidentally makes someone else happy, then works out just fine too.
I view (filmmaking) the way I view sex. If I accidentally give someone else pleasure during it, I'm fine with that.
In a lengthy interview with The Guardian, Steven Soderbergh discussed his long career in film, touching on multiple bodies of work and his general approach to filmmaking. Soderbergh's relationship with the studio system has been up and down to the point that he announced his retirement from filmmaking altogether to be an oil painter. But like any great lover, he keeps coming back for more. While some of his films have been more experimental than others, such as Schizopolis and Bubble, he doesn't seem to care much if they are massively popular. Soderbergh winkingly compares his filmmaking to his lovemaking: giving joy to others is more of a happy accident.
Steven Soderbergh has never been very interested in only making films that will be popular. While he does have popular films like the Ocean's Eleven series and Magic Mike, he's not afraid to completely buck the trend and get weird with the movie making. His comedy Schizopolis uses a nonlinear narrative, and his film Bubble didn't use a use a script or professional actors.
Logan Lucky, while mostly conventional onscreen, was actually made using a new production model that avoided the typical studio system. Instead of spending huge amounts of money on marketing (which Soderbergh believes to be wasteful), the director used "foreign rights to finance production costs, and ancillary rights -- HBO, Netflix, video on demand, TV replays -- to pay for a much more micro-targeted campaign." Thus, Logan Lucky is an indie film, but it looks and acts like a bigger budget studio film because of how it spent its money. Even big name stars like Daniel Craig agreed to take pay cuts for the movie. Whether or not this worked out for the heist movie is debatable, but Soderbergh is probably fine with it.
You can watch Steven Soderbergh's latest film, Logan Lucky, in theaters right now. For more big releases dropping throughout the rest of the year, make sure to pay a visit to our 2017 movie release schedule to plan out all your theater trips for the rest of the year.
