When you think of any random lineup on Turner Classic Movies, you immediately picture movies from the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. However, George Clooney would have easily become a star at any point in Hollywood’s history, so his presence at the 2023 TCM Classic Film Festival (TCMFF) Friday night wasn’t as crazy as it first seemed. Clooney joined director Steven Soderbergh and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz to discuss the making of their Ocean’s Eleven, even joking about the chances of making an Ocean’s Fourteen.
After successfully remaking the Rat Pack classic Ocean’s 11, Clooney, Soderbergh, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, and everyone else from the first film reunited for Ocean’s Twelve in 2004. Most of the main cast returned again in Ocean’s Thirteen three years later. The franchise remained dormant until Ocean’s 8, an all-female spectacular that earned positive reviews in 2018. Soderbergh was involved as a producer, but directing was handled by Gary Ross. That movie killed off Clooney’s Danny Ocean, but no one ever really dies, especially con men, in movies.
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When Mankiewicz asked Clooney and Soderbergh if there could ever be an Ocean’s Fourteen, the two reminded him that Danny is dead. “It could be like Bond though,” Mankiewicz noted. “In the next movie, we could just ignore that he’s dead.”
Although Soderbergh would be interested in doing an Ocean’s Fourteen, he’s got other things on his plate. “I’m thinking about tomorrow,” the Magic Mike director artfully explained. “Or maybe he could do something new… I don’t know, like a stripper movie,” Clooney joked. “I left it all on the field there,” Soderbergh said.
Clooney later brought up that Mankiewicz joked earlier about mixing the Magic Mike and Ocean’s franchises. “Ocean’s Mike?” Clooney suggested. “They have strip clubs in Vegas,” Mankiewicz pointed out. Magic Danny was another potential crossover title thrown out. “Danny gets his groove,” Clooney joked.
Soderbergh and Clooney chatted with Mankiewicz about their careers and the making of Ocean’s for about 20 minutes before the film played to a packed audience at the TCL Chinese Theatre. Later in their discussion, Soderbergh gave a frank and serious view of the industry to explain why he considered retiring. Soderbergh announced his retirement in 2013, only to come back months later to direct the beloved Cinemax series The Knick. He’s been regularly making movies now since 2016, with his most recent being Magic Mike’s Last Dance.
“I think I conflated some frustrations that I had with the way the business works with the job and what I came to understand fortunately through reading, something that came to me which turned into… I like the job. I like the job,” Soderbergh said. “I’m built to do this job and I just sort of gotten, confused because the business is frustrated.” Soderbergh said he came to terms with separating the job from the business end which frustrates him.
“But one of the pleasures is frankly making something that 20 plus years later anybody’s talking about because the worst fear for any filmmaker they will tell you is feeling irrelevant like that. You’ve… made something that is single-use plastic and that people just forget the minute they’ve watched it,” he said.
Clooney also recalled how meeting Soderbergh in 1997 to make Out of Sight with Jennifer Lopez drastically changed his view on telling stories. Before working with the director, Clooney was primarily a TV star. Even though Out of Sight wasn’t financially successful, it still put Clooney on the path he’s still walking today as one of Hollywood’s last great stars.
“He is someone that I just greatly admire as a person and also as a filmmaker and storyteller and he’s very brave and he takes great chances and risks,” Clooney said of Soderbergh. “And sometimes I’m like, ‘Why are you doing that?’ And, at the end of it, I understand all of it. You know, the fact that we’re here today and yes, it, it’s 20-some years later, but so is Traffic and so is Erin Brockovich. So is Sex, Lies, and Videotape. There’s so many of the films that you’ve done that just pass the test of time.”
