Tonight brought some big news to La Casa del Narrator. The fact that my notifications on Facebook and Twitter blew up was a pretty big indicator on what the news in particular was, before I knew anything about it, and when I saw the scoop, oh, it was glorious. For maybe ten minutes at most. And then it kinda went to shit before perking up a bit. And then it perked up a whole hell of a lot, and I’m not quite sure how to feel. Anyways, Steven Soderbergh is probably coming out of “retirement” pretty soon.

First, some clarification. Soderbergh himself maintains that his retirement was more of a sabbatical, and even then only from directing theatrical features. So there. Now, back to the story. Variety reported tonight that Soderbergh would be directing the heist movie Hillbilly Heist, whose script he loved enough to come out of “”””””retirement”””””” to direct it. It was to star Matt Damon and Channing “Chan-fried Po-Taters” Tatum. All was well. Then Soderbergh took to Twitter and said that the Variety piece was wrong. All was thrown into utter chaos, with screams of “Smell sign!” reverberating throughout the city streets. Then came a man named Jeff Sneider, who says that Soderbergh is involved to some capacity, but his non-disclosure agreement prevents him from specifying exactly what position he’s taking, whether it’s director, editor, cinematographer, or caterer. And then came Deadline, whose article on the subject seemed to reveal that Variety’s article was indeed very wrong, but in more reassuring ways than “everything about this is wrong”. First off, the movie is not called Hillbilly Heist, it is called Logan Lucky, and while it does star Po-Taters and is apparently directed by Soderbergh (and produced by his longtime producer/1st AD, Gregory Jacobs), Matt Damon is not attached. Who is? Michael Shannon. Excuse me, while I go get a change of pants as a result of that casting news. Shannon + Soderbergh is a dream couple I never, ever knew I wanted, but one that, upon reflection, seems as natural as peanut butter and jelly, or foul language and primetime television. So, there. The story of Soderbergh very likely returning to theaters as a director was broken in the most confusing, temporarily aggravating way possible. As a reward, here’s something for your troubles (and my reaction to this news, now that it’s all come out).