Steven Soderbergh Wrote A Script For 'Sex, Lies, And Videotape 2' While In Quarantine

Steven Soderbergh has been the name du jour amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with many turning to his frighteningly realistic thriller Contagion during these uncertain times and the filmmaker getting tapped to lead a committee to safely resume film production. But what has Soderbergh actually been up to in the months since lockdown? Writing.

Soderbergh revealed that he has finished three screenplays since lockdown started, one of which is a sequel to his breakout film, Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Which we're guessing will now will have to be renamed to Sex, Lies, and Netflix.

Soderbergh was launched to the public spotlight with 1989's Sex, Lies, and Videotape, an acclaimed indie drama that would mark a new era for independent film. Soderbergh would move on to bigger things, but ever since lockdown began, the filmmaker has been itching to get back to his roots, doing "more sustained writing than I've done since the summer of 1985," he told Flaviar's NightCap Live (via Collider).

"And it's worth noting that I never considered myself a writer," Soderbergh added. "I wrote as a way to get into the business, because nobody can stop you from sitting down in front of a keyboard and writing. I grew up in a suburban subdivision in Baton Rouge, I had no connections to the film industry at all, and I just felt if I write, I may write something that somebody sees and reads and wants to make. So when the lockdown happened here in New York, in order to stay organized and sane, I decided I'm gonna write. I've gotta go back to writing."

So what exactly has he been writing? Three screenplays, one of which he describes as a "original," the second is an adaptation of a novel, and the third is a sequel to Sex, Lies, and Videotape:

"So within the first 6 or 7 weeks of the lockdown, I finished 3 screenplays. One of them was a rewrite, one of them was an original, and one was an adaptation of a novel that I've been wanting to do. The original was a sequel to Sex Lies and Videotape. It was an idea that had been circling for awhile, and I felt like I came up with the way to get back in, and so I wrote it, and I wanna make it."

It would be nothing if this was simply an exercise for Soderbergh to keep his creative juices flowing, but the filmmaker actually says he wants to make a Sex, Lies, and Videotape 2, which would come more than 31 years after the original. He doesn't go into details about what this sequel would entail or whether it would feature original film stars James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, and Laura San Giacomo. But considering Soderbergh's recent experimentation with filmmaking, using smartphones to film his recent films Unsane and High Flying Bird, it seems like a fitting follow-up to make a Sex, Lies, and Videotape sequel center around the unseemly things captured on iPhones. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he went and shot Sex, Lies, and Videotape 2 while in quarantine — the pressure cooker of isolation and the ubiquitous presence of smartphones in every household would make it easy.