Deadline Hollywood (Via Dark Horizons) reports that Gwyneth Paltrow just joined the cast for Steven Soderbergh's latest project, which looks like some kind of virus-related horror drama. Or something. Paltrow joins an already stacked cast: Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Jude Law and Kate Winslet. The film is called Contagion and its scripted by Scott Z. Burns, who worked with Soderbergh recently on The Informant! and with Paul Greengrass on The Bourne Ultimatum - or as fans of Ludlum's books like to call it The Bourne Movie That's Least Like its Original Source Novel.
The project is part of Soderbergh's push to make what can only crassly be called more commercially viable films again. Though his now infamous Moneyball adaptation fell-through, he is currently working on an "espionage thriller" called Knockout, which is set to star martial artist Gina Carano, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and Channing Tatum. Soderbergh cranks out an incredible volume of high-quality products, almost all of which are drastically different in tone and style from each other but he's always prided himself on being an indie film maverick. Now it looks like he's expanding his horizons to include big-budget genre films starring a gaggle of bankable stars. Here's hoping Paltrow and co. can help Soderbergh conquer his next challenge: irate zombie fans ("Why's it called a 'Rage virus?'" "Why do they have to run fast?" "Was that a reference to the zombie/shark fight in Zombi 2?")
