Steven Soderbergh's ‘Black Bag' Might Be The Longest Film of His Career (148 Minutes)

Steven Soderbergh‘s spy thriller “Black Bag” recently set up a March 14, 2025, release date, via Focus Features. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender star in the film alongside Regé-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, Tom Burke and Pierce Brosnan.

For a few weeks now, a 148-minute runtime has been circulating for the film, and I have not been able to confirm it, but if “Black Bag” is indeed that long then it would become the lengthiest film of Soderbergh’s career, eclipsing “Traffic” by a minute. His 2008 “Che” was split into two parts, both released separately, if both chapters were to count as one film, then the 267-minute runtime would easily eclipse “Traffic” and “Black Bag.”

Ever since he un-retired from directing, Soderbergh has been making almost a movie per year, and all of those films were under 2 hours. It’s intriguing to see him branch out into a more ambitious narrative. If the March release sticks, then don’t be surprised if it premieres at Sundance in January.

We don’t know much in terms of plot details for this one. Soderbergh has described it as his own take on a Howard Hawks film. Hawks was a genre-hopper (“Scarface,” “Rio Bravo,” “His Girl Friday”). In Hawks' own words, his directing style was based on being “enjoyable” and “straightforward” — that might be what Soderbergh is going for with his next one.

Soderbergh has described “Black Bag” as being about the “intelligence community” and a couple fully invested in that part of the world. He added that there’s a 12-page scene in the script where people are “sitting down for a dinner. They don’t move. There’s no huge gunfight. Nothing but people eating dinner”. 

“Black Bag” is one of Soderbergh’s priciest projects, budgeted at $60M, and was written by David Koepp (“Carlito’s Way,” “Jurassic Park,” “Mission: Impossible”).

While we’re at it, Soderbergh’s horror film “Presence,” which premiered in January at Sundance, is also coming out in January 2025, just two months before “Black Bag” gets released. Neon is in charge of that one.