Interview: Steven Soderbergh

The Wall Street Journal has this interview with writer-director Steven Soderbergh. This week, the WSJ also had this article on the great lengths Soderbergh had to go to in order to finance his latest movie Che which debuts December 12. In the interview, Soderbergh talks about the state of independent films:

There is a dead zone between $25 million and $85 million — it’s a very difficult proposition to get adult dramas made in that range. They just don’t perform today. Many of the films that I made, “Erin Brockovich” and “Traffic,” are smack in the middle of that range — both had budgets of about $46 million. They would be harder to get made today than they were 10 years ago. It would be harder to find the money to make them and harder to find an audience for them.

We should invert the entire price structure of the film business, we should be charging less for movie tickets and a lot more for downloads. When I look at the industry now, I feel like everything is backwards: It’s a rush to the lowest price point imaginable. You need to reward people for leaving the house and actually doing something and you need to make them pay for the ease of double-clicking on iTunes.

I’m wary of predicting the death of the independent world. Every time I’ve done that, something pops — and changes everything. Years ago, somebody screened Chris Nolan’s “Memento” for me because all the distributors had passed on it at a festival. Watching it, at that moment, I really felt, ‘This is the end, this is really the Death of Independent Film: If nobody wants to buy a movie this good.’ But Newmarket ended up forming their own distribution company and making $25 million off the movie — and suddenly, pop, the independent world is back.

While known for his work as a director, Soderbergh has also written a number of his movies including Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989). King of the Hill (1993), and Solaris (2002).