Now that he’s well and truly committed to making pharmaceutical thriller The Side Effects (which has switched back to its original title from **The Bitter Pill), Steven Soderbergh has been busy collecting a cast. And it looks like he’s locking in a Soder-newcomer and two veterans for the lead roles, with Blake Lively, Jude Law and Channing Tatum close to signing on.
According to the genial gang over at The Playlist, Lively is going to be playing Emily Hawkins, a woman wracked with anxiety about the impending release of her husband (Tatum) from prison. As well as popping pills to deal with her worries, she also turns to a psychologist (Law) for help.
This will mark Lively’s first time working with the director, but he’s showing his trademark willingness to stick people he likes, as Tatum is now a two-time Soderbergh star with action thriller Haywire set for release and stripper drama Magic Mike now in post-production. Law, meanwhile, appeared in Contagion and seems happy to keep working with the director.
With the latest draft of the script in hand from Contagion’s Scott Z Burns and the cast now coming together, Soderbergh is also close to getting the financing sorted, as film backer Megan Ellison is reportedly digging into her billion-dollar pockets to see Effects made. If it all coalesces, the director will kick off shooting in April for a 2013 release before moving on to make Liberace biopic Behind The Candelabra as his last film before he takes his planned break from movies.
Haywire will be out here on January 18.