Steven Soderbergh Talks Retirement

Approaching age 50, Steven Soderbergh wants to gracefully bow out of the directing world.

He told Studio 360, “You know when you see one of those athletes hang on two seasons too long? It’s kind of sad, because then your last image of them isn’t when they were great…I mean, why not go out with Abbey Road?"

But the Traffic director and Oscar winner still has a few films to finish before he says his final farewell.

Aside from his recently completed films, Haywire and Contagion, a Liberace biopic with Matt Damon and Michael Douglas is in pre-production, and he is working on a film version of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. starring George Clooney. In September he will begin work on Magic Mike, starring Channing Tatum and Alex Pettyfer as male strippers.

He jokingly told Deadline, “I figured by giving them two years lead time, they would line up those lifetime achievement awards, but there have been no calls or anything — The Oprah thing. A year-long daily celebration of my fabulousness would be nice. Or maybe just a smallish parade."

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