Panama Papers movie: Steven Soderbergh to reunite with Contagion writer for data leak film

Having directed Contagion, Magic Mike and Behind The Candelabra over the last few years, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh is no stranger when it comes to tackling all kinds of different genres. Now, he is going to be expanding his reach even further as he eyes up the opportunity to mastermind a movie all about the Panama Papers data scandal which occurred earlier this year.

The 53-year-old is already on board the project as a producer, so whether he decides to direct or not, he will once again team up with screenwriter Scott Z. Burns, a frequent collaborator with whom he made The Informant! and Side Effects. Fellow producers include Lawrence Grey of Grey Matter Productions (Lights Out) with Michael Sugar of Anonymous Content.

Sugar recently produced on Oscar-winning drama Spotlight, which centred around a team of investigative journalists and their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation for The Boston Globe which uncovered the truth about a number of child sex abuse cases that went on within the Catholic Church. He also worked on WikiLeaks thriller, The Fifth Estate, with Benedict Cumberbatch.

The Panama Papers records were leaked from the Panama-based company Mossack Fonseca, one of the world's biggest offshore law firms. They exposed many high net-worth individuals who employ complex, legal accounting systems and offshore funds to avoid taxation. Those unmasked included Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as well as numerous government officials and entertainment personalities Simon Cowell, Stanley Kubrick, Emma Watson, Pedro Almodóvar and Jackie Chan.

The information was first leaked by an anonymous source to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which then leaked them to the ICIJ. The ICIJ went on to transfer the vast data dump to a number of international news publications, including the Guardian and the BBC.

The movie's script will be based on the forthcoming book, The Secrecy World by Jake Bernstein, one of the ICIJ reporters integral to the unveiling of the 11.5 million documents.

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