After setting his last film, Logan Lucky, in the world of auto racing, director Steven Soderbergh is returning to sports for an upcoming project.
As reported by The Film Stage, the NBA will be the backdrop of Soderbergh’s next movie, titled High Flying Bird. Andre Holland (42, Moonlight) will star in the film, reuniting the actor and director who worked together on Cinemax’s 1900s medical drama, The Knick.
The brief summary of the film (or logline, to use an industry term) is as follows:
“During an NBA lockout, a sports agent, Dean (Holland), presents his rookie client, Erick Scott, with an intriguing and controversial business opportunity.”
No word yet on who will play the NBA rookie. The NBA’s last actual lockout was in 2011, which resulted in an eight-month work stoppage and reduced the 2011-12 season to 66 games. (A lockout in 1999 lasted six months, shortening the 1999-2000 season to 50 games.)
The script for High Flying Bird was written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who won Best Adapted Screenplay at last year’s Academy Awards (along with Barry Jenkins) for Best Picture winner Moonlight. The screenplay was based on his play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue.
Soderbergh claimed he was retiring from filmmaking in 2013, but directed all 20 episodes of The Knick, which followed a brilliant, but troubled surgeon (played by Clive Owen) and the staff at the Knickerbocker Hospital in 1990s New York. Holland played Dr. Algernon Edwards, the assistant chief surgeon whose skills are constantly doubted because of his race. He opens an after-hours clinic in the hospital’s basement to help the black patients who the doctors and nurses won’t treat.
(If you’re looking for something to binge and you have Cinemax, The Knick is an outstanding series. Give it a look.)
Soderbergh’s next film, Unsane, is set to hit theaters on March 23. Starring Claire Foy (The Crown), the movie is drawing attention for being filmed entirely on an iPhone.