Everyone Is Streaming The Matt Damon Movie ‘Contagion’ Because Of Coronavirus

‘Contagion’ was an OK film with a ton of big name stars that nobody really remembers, but it looks as though the 2011 movie is seeing renewed interest in 2020 thanks to the coronavirus.

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It’s now one of the most rented films of 2020, going from the 270th most-watched Warner Bros movie in December 2019 to now cracking the top 5 just a couple months later. It’s also the 12th most rented movie overall on iTunes (it’s not on Netflix, sadly).

The Steven Soderbergh thriller originally made $75 million at the box office and got decent reviews, but hardly set the world on fire. It starred Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Laurence Fishburne and more.

To be fair, the synopsis fits near perfectly with coronavirus:

When Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns to Minnesota from a Hong Kong business trip, she attributes the malaise she feels to jet lag. However, two days later, Beth is dead, and doctors tell her shocked husband (Matt Damon) that they have no idea what killed her. Soon, many others start to exhibit the same symptoms, and a global pandemic explodes. Doctors try to contain the lethal microbe, but society begins to collapse as a blogger (Jude Law) fans the flames of paranoia.

Look at what happened this week – they’ve even postponed the release of the new Bond film:

James Bond Sequel ‘No Time to Die’ Postponed Due to Coronavirus Outbreak https://t.co/rtG8iEBVNJ

— Variety (@Variety) March 4, 2020

While the producers of ‘Contagion’ are obviously happy that their movie is trending, one of them told Buzzfeed that he hopes it doesn’t irrationally freak people out over coronavirus:

And while Soderbergh did intend to scare audiences in making the film, [producer Michael] Shamberg said he hopes new Contagion viewers still find something positive in the movie.

“Is it giving them comfort? Well, it shows that ultimately there will be a solution and humanity will recover,” he said. “If it’s scary, it’s only meant to scare people into taking precautions and it’s only meant to scare the infrastructure into doing the right thing.

“We’re not trying to scare people that they’re all going to die. We’re trying to scare people that you can do something.”

Thanks for the reassuring words there bud. If you ask me though ‘Outbreak’ with Dustin Hoffman is the superior deadly virus film. Oh bollocks, that’s not on Netflix either.