Stephen Soderbergh is working on a “philosophical” sequel to his 2011 pandemic-themed thriller Contagion.

Ratings for Contagion, which depicts the outbreak of a deadly disease, soared this year as the world dealt with the COVID-19 outbreak.

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Speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Soderbergh revealed he is working with Contagion screenwriter Scott Z. Burns on a new movie that revisits the themes of the 2011 movie.

“I’ve got a project in development that Scott Burns is working with me on, that’s a kind of philosophical sequel to Contagion, but in a different context,” he said.

“You’ll kind of look at the two of them as kind of paired, but very different hair colours,” added. “So, Scott and I had been talking about, ‘So, what’s the next iteration of a Contagion-type story?’ We have been working on that; we should probably hot-foot it a little bit.”

Contagion screenwriter Burns opened up about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic earlier this year. Speaking to Slate about the rise in viewings of Contagion in the wake of the global pandemic, Burns was asked about the plot of his film “more or less coming true in real time”.

He said: “It has been very strange to me, whether on social media or in conversations with friends, that people will say to me, ‘This is uncanny how similar it is.’ And I don’t find it to be that surprising, because the scientists I spoke to, and there were a lot of them, all said that this was a matter of when, not if.”

Meanwhile, back in March, Contagion stars Matt Damon and Kate Winslet appeared in a series of videos to help share health information about the pandemic.

The videos, made in conjunction with scientists from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, were filmed in the actors’ homes and directed by Soderbergh and produced by Burns.