The last few months have seen a huge rise in the flu spreading through North America.
With that being the case, it is only fitting that the 2011’s smash hit ‘Contagion‘ is now being looked at as a possible television series. Steven Soderbergh and Scott Z. Burns put together an epic masterpiece of how a viral outbreak could cause massive destruction to the lives of our society. Not only from the death toll, but also from how it would change if we even left our houses and the precautions we may need to take to do so.
While rumors popped up last year about a potential sequel, there has been no solid news of anything else happening with the movie – until now.
ComingSoon.net recently had a chance to talk to Burns about the third film he and Soderbergh were about to release titled ‘Side Effects’ and brought up ‘Contagion’. It looks like a sequel is in mind though not quite in the way we were all expecting. We may just end up having a new television series based around the film! According to Burns:
“We’ve been talking about turning it into a TV series and I think it may have a life there. It has some of the properties inherently like ‘Homeland’ and ’24’ where you can really explore outbreaks and pandemics in interesting ways. Like this story, they take you to unexpected places, whether it’s drug companies or governments or scientists or people with political agendas. All of these things, once they’re out there, can be coopted from a lot of different angles.”
With a mention of both ‘Homeland’ AND ’24’ (which are two of my favorite television shows) I’m interested! The movie itself gripped my attention (as it would with anyone who commutes on a train or subway I’m sure) so mixing it into an ongoing story could prove to be fantastic.
Where might the series go that wasn’t explored in the film? Burns had this to say:
“That movie had an almost fractal kind of quality for me as a writer because anytime I looked at a business or a character, when it’s something like a virus, it changes everything. If you have a date with somebody and they’re sick and now you don’t go out with them to businessmen who don’t get on planes and don’t go to meetings, so certain things don’t happen. It becomes a causal agent for a whole bunch of plot.”
This series has yet to be green-lit and is still just a working idea. With the success of so many post-apocalyptic shows from the past few years, heightened worry from the flu epidemic, the success of the movie and those who would be attached to the project, I can see this one in our living rooms in the near future.
How about you? Would you like to see ‘Contagion’ turned into a series? Comment below!
