Director Steven Soderbergh has said he is working on “a kind of philosophical sequel” to his pandemic thriller Contagion, which has found new popularity amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The filmmaker said the “next iteration” of the story, which originally starred Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet, will be set in a “new context”.
The 2011 film surged up the iTunes charts after people were first ordered to stay at home earlier this year and soon appeared in the top 10 on Netflix.
It is about a mysterious virus which originates in Hong Kong before travellers coming back to America bring it with them and infect the population.
It follows healthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people who find themselves in the midst of a deadly pandemic, as scientists race to find a cure.
Soderbergh, who is also responsible for films including Magic Mike, Ocean’s Eleven, Erin Brockovich and Out Of Sight, said he has reunited with the film’s writer Scott Z Burns for the sequel.
He told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: “I’ve got a project in development that Scott Burns is working with me on, that’s a kind of philosophical sequel to Contagion but in a different context.
“You’ll kind of look at the two of them as kind of paired but they are very different hair colours.
“So, Scott and I had been talking about, ‘So, what’s the next iteration of a Contagion-type story?’.
“We have been working on that. We should probably hotfoot it a little bit.”