An incredibly exciting reunion is taking place at—where else—Netflix. While his outstanding Cinemax series The Knick just completed a pretty definitive second season, with options being weighed regarding how to move forward with a third, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is now taking his talents to Netflix with a familiar face in tow. Per THR, Soderbergh and his Out of Sight screenwriter Scott Frank are executive producing a limited series for Netflix called Godless, described as a Western set in 1884.
Frank—whose screenwriting credits range from Minority Report to The Wolverine—will write and direct the project, while Soderbergh will serve as executive producer. Production on a limited number of hourlong episodes will take place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but further details about the show’s story and tone are under wraps for the time being.
Frank most recently directed the underrated Liam Neeson thriller A Walk Among the Tombstones and also helmed the also underrated 2007 Joseph Gordon-Levitt-fronted heist picture The Lookout, so he’s got some serious talent behind the camera to bring to Godless. This isn’t his first go-around in the television realm, however, as he also created and directed the FX pilot Hoke, which did not move forward to series.
Godless marks a curious move for Netflix, which has thus far eschewed the “limited series” model that’s all the rage on traditional TV networks like ABC and FX. It’ll be interesting to see if this marks a trend for the streaming service, or if Godless will remain an outlier in their plans to expand original series programming exponentially.
As for Soderbergh, he recently shot a mysterious project for HBO with Sharon Stone and is rumored to be involved with a new feature film starring Channing Tatum and Michael Shannon. As mentioned before, he’s also working on plans for a third season of The Knick that would radically mix things up, including a potential cast and location change with a desire to let another filmmaker come in and craft his or her own vision for two more seasons.
While the “retirement” claim gets thrown around a lot, it’s clear Soderbergh simply moved on from traditional feature filmmaking to telling different kinds of stories on the small screen. And the prospect of seeing him team up with the screenwriter behind one of his best films—for a Western, no less!—is highly intriguing.
