Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Side Effects’ Gains Catherine Zeta-Jones, Loses Financier Megan Ellison
There are some changes going on withSteven Soderbergh’s planned filmSide Effects. The past couple months have seen reports of SoderberghditchingThe Man From UNCLEand taking up theSide Effectsscript byUNCLEandContagionscreenwriterScott Z. Burns. In the past couple weeks there have been reports that Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Productions would financeSide Effects, with Open Road (The Grey) set to distribute after Summit decided not to pick up the film.
But Ellison has walked away from the film, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. (Theorize if you like about the middling performance of last weekend’sHaywireopening being a factor.) With the departure of Ellison, some of the previously attached cast is in doubt. But there is one new addition: Soderbergh' vetCatherine Zeta-Jones(Ocean’s Twelve,Traffic).
Varietyreports that while Ellison and Annapurna have moved away from the project, Open Road reps say the deal to distribute the film is “in place.” So that’s good. Variety also says that the participation ofChanning Tatum,Blake LivelyandJude Law— all threeannouncednot long ago — is currently “unclear.“Deadline, meanwhile, says that Law, Lively and Tatum are all still involved, and also announces the addition of Catherine Zeta-Jones. That article says the plan is still to shoot the movie starting in April. (The film is meant to be Soderbergh’s next-to-last, with the finale being theLiberace movieBehind the Candelabra, shooting later this summer.)Deadline also outlines where Zeta-Jones fits in:
Just to make things a little more complicated,The Playlisthas its own source, and says that Megan Ellison’s departure was thanks to Soderbergh’s desire to cast Blake Lively. (Hopefully it wasn’t justGreen Lanternthat led to reservations there, because that’s not a very fair representation of most of the talent involved.) The site says that while she’s still involved, similar resistance from another financier could lead to re-casting that role, withRooney Mara,Michelle Williams,Emily BluntandImogen Pootsall being viewed as possible alternate options.
