Black Bag: Steven Soderbergh’s spy drama starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender targets a 2025 release date

As the Hollywood news cycle continues to churn with anticipation for the launch of Deadpool & Wolverine, presidential candidate endorsements, and enthusiasm for the increasing numbers of the summer box office, Focus Features is ready to make headlines by assigning a date for Steven Soderbergh‘s upcoming spy drama Black Bag. The studio says Black Bag opens in theaters on March 14, 2024. Focus will release the film in the US, and Universal Pictures International will handle international distribution.

Black Bag is a high-stakes mystery starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, as well as Regé-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, Tom Burke, and Pierce Brosnan. Steven Soderbergh directs Black Bag from a script by David Koepp. Soderbergh and Blanchett previously worked together on his 2006 noir thriller The Good German. Additionally, Blanchett played a part in the film Ocean’s 8, part of Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11 franchise. Soderbergh produced Ocean’s 8 but didn’t direct that one. He and Fassbender previously worked together on his 2011 action thriller Haywire. And in addition to collaborating on Presence, Soderbergh and Koepp also worked together on the 2022 thriller Kimi.

Cate Blanchett’s next silver-screen outing is Eli Roth’s Borderlands, an action extravaganza based on the best-selling video game franchise from 2K and Gearbox Software. Blanchett plays Lilith, a Vault Hunter, in the film coming to theaters on August 9.

Here’s the synopsis: “Lilith (Blanchett), an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe’s most powerful S.O.B., Atlas (Ramirez). Lilith allies with an unexpected team – Roland (Hart), a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina (Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis (Curtis), the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (Black), a persistently wiseass robot. These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.”

Borderlands also stars Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramirez, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Haley Bennett, Olivier Richters, Gina Gershon, Cheyenne Jackson, Charles Babalola, Benjamin Byron Davis, Steven Boyer, Bobby Lee, Ryann Redmond, Penn Jillette, and Janina Gavankar, who plays “a new, key character” called Commander Knoxx, someone who has not been in the video games. Jack Black provides the voice of the robot Claptrap.

Michael Fassbender recently completed work on David Sandberg’s long-gestating sequel, Kung Fury 2. The story will focus on Kung Fury’s universe, which has no real connection to the short movie other than the lead character. The anticipated Kung Fury film stars Alexandra Shipp, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Hasselhoff, and more!

While it’s nice to have a release date for Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag, we know very little about the film thus far. We’ll share more details when we receive updates about this curious spy project.