'Traffic' Ends Soderbergh's Big Year

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) â€” For those who have wondered what ever happened to that guy who made ``sex, lies and videotape,'' the past couple of years make for a resounding reply. <br><br>Since his

Wednesday, December 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) â€” For those who have wondered what ever happened to that guy who made ``sex, lies and videotape,'' the past couple of years make for a resounding reply.

Since his low-budget debut became a surprise box-office smash in 1989, Steven Soderbergh worked steadily but obscurely on a series of films that were generally ignored by mainstream moviegoers.

``I think literally there might have been people who believed that I was never going to re-emerge or that I had lost interest in finding an audience and was just going to toil in obscurity for the rest of my career,'' Soderbergh said in an interview at his production office near Warner Bros., which is financing his next movie, a remake of ``Ocean's Eleven.''

Some of his follow-up films were panned (the surreal ``Kafka''), some were lauded (the sweet Depression memoir ``King of the Hill''), and some were so low-budget and off-kilter that they could never hope for anything but a cult audience (the underground satire ``Schizopolis''). There was also the noirish ``The Underneath'' and the Spaulding Gray comic memoir ``Gray's Anatomy.''

``I'm sure there were people who thought, what the hell has happened to that guy? But I was just sort of practicing. I wasn't thinking about an audience. I was more concerned with pushing myself and trying to get better at my job, and I understood that would involve certain detours and failures. But I felt that was worth it, that if I put the time in, it would pay off.

``And I feel like now it's starting to pay off.''

The payoff began with the 1998 comic crime caper ``Out of Sight,'' a big studio project starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. The movie was populist, if not hugely popular, and won praise for its slick pacing. Last year, Soderbergh returned with the acclaimed independent feature ``The Limey.''

Then came ``Erin Brockovich,'' which raked in $125 million on the strength of Soderbergh's crowd-pleasing direction and Julia Roberts' saucy charm (with an assist from her trampy outfits).

Bookending 2000 as Soderbergh's breakout year, his sprawling drug-war drama, ``Traffic,'' opens just after Christmas. The huge cast includes Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Don Cheadle.

Soderbergh, an Oscar nominee for the ``sex, lies and videotape'' screenplay, is a double factor for the upcoming awards season. The New York Film Critics Circle chose ``Traffic'' as the year's best film. That group, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures named Soderbergh best director for ``Traffic'' and ``Erin Brockovich.''

Such honors are ``not why I get up in the morning,'' said Soderbergh, 37. ``I'm a process person. I just like going to work. When a movie's done, I'm immediately sort of thinking about the next one.''

As idiosyncratic as his earlier films are, he said he always had been open to taking on a big studio movie. Until ``Out of Sight,'' though, none of those offers had felt right, he said.

``I was concerned about the fact that half the business was seemingly off-limits to me, that I'd marginalized myself. I didn't want to do that,'' Soderbergh said. ``I like to pop back and forth, a bigger film maybe followed by smaller, more independent ones.''

Soderbergh began making short films as a teen-ager in Louisiana. He didn't bother with college, deciding instead to focus on writing screenplays and making short movies. In the 1980s, he shot music videos and spent two years working in a video arcade while he continued writing.

During a holiday road trip from Louisiana to Los Angeles, Soderbergh wrote ``sex, lies and videotape,'' launching his feature-film career.

He has not directed one of his own screenplays in four years, but he is working on a script for a new movie version of ``Solaris,'' based on the Stanislaw Lem sci-fi novel.

Soderbergh said that the advantage to awards buzz is the attention it can bring to good movies that do not have gut audience appeal, such as ``Traffic.'' Based on the British TV miniseries ``Traffik,'' the movie spins three interweaving stories: about America's new drug czar (Douglas), whose teen-age daughter is an addict; about a Mexican policeman (Del Toro) caught between corruption and honor; and about a drug lord's wife (Zeta-Jones) who jumps into the family business with brutal flair after her husband is arrested.

``It's a complex film about a complex subject, and it's not the traditional subject matter that pulls people into movie theaters,'' Soderbergh said. ``So we need any kind of attention we can get.''

Oddly, given Roberts' star power, Soderbergh had doubts about how audiences would respond to ``Erin Brockovich.'' Roberts had had lackluster results before when she strayed from romantic comedy, and Soderbergh had to fight distributor Universal to keep the clunky, off-putting title.

``I did not want to be the guy who tanked Julia,'' said Soderbergh, who ticks off all the reasons ``Erin Brockovich'' could have bombed.

``Start with the title. Start with the fact it's not necessarily the kind of movie that Julia's associated with. It's not based on a well-known story or event. There's no hit song, there's no sex, no violence. There's no video. It's not a tentpole movie with sequel potential. There's no merchandising.

``It would have been really easy, in retrospect, if it hadn't taken off, to go, well, this is why it didn't work.''

Instead, Roberts and Soderbergh are looking at possible Oscars. They are reuniting for ``Ocean's Eleven,'' which also stars Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.

Due in theaters late next year, the movie is a new take on the 1960 Vegas casino-heist flick that starred Frank Sinatra and other Rat Packers. Though not a big fan of the original, Soderbergh said the script was a creative retelling and a nice change of pace.

``Coming on the heels of `Erin' and `Traffic,' it's good for me,'' Soderbergh said. ``It's a film of no social value whatsoever. It's just fun, and I'm really looking forward to it.''