Steven Soderbergh Called the Warner Bros. Exec Who Disliked ‘Memento’ and Told Him to Consider Christopher Nolan for ‘Insomnia’: ‘Take the Meeting’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Steven Soderbergh recently spoke to Rolling Stone while promoting his new series “Command Z” about the origins of his friendship with fellow filmmaker Christopher Nolan.

According to the “Traffic” and “Ocean’s Eleven” director, a Warner Bros. executive refused to meet with Nolan about a potential directing gig for the studio’s thriller “Insomnia.” The exec allegedly disliked Nolan’s “Memento,” which counted Soderbergh as one of its biggest fans. “What happened was, I got a call from Chris’ agent, Dan Aloni, who I had known because he screened ‘Memento’ for me after it couldn’t find a distributor after being on the festival circuit for a year,” Soderbergh said. “Dan calls me up out of the blue and says, ‘Could you watch this movie?

I have this client of mine who has this movie, and we think it’s really good, but nobody will pick it up and we don’t understand why.

Maybe we’re all crazy.’ I see the movie and I think it’s a fucking instant classic.” “Cut to months later, Dan calls me and he goes, ‘Look, there’s this script over at Warner, “Insomnia.” Chris is really interested in it, but Warner won’t take the meeting,'” Soderbergh continued. “And I go, ‘What do you mean they won’t take the meeting?’ And he goes, ‘Well, the executive there didn’t like “Memento.”‘ And I said, ‘Well, so what?