Hendra

Contagion is the name of a new action-thriller movie about a global outbreak of a deadly viral disease. Slated to be released in 2011, it is directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Lawrence Fishburne. That’s certainly an outstanding crew, but will they get the science right?

According to Beyond Hollywood, “the film will have most of the big names playing doctors who are called to duty by the Centers for Disease Control when a major viral outbreak starts killing people around the world. The cast will then be split up and jet off to different continents.” Dread Central calls it ‘the deadly viral outbreak film of the decade’. Apparently Jude Law will play “a kind of unbridled blogger who’s a sort of scaremonger. Basically, it’s about a deadly virus unleashed and you see it from many different points of view, whether it be the public, medical care, politicians.”

The particular virus involved in Contagion has not been identified, but I have a good source which tells me that it’s a paramyxovirus. That’s not too hard to believe since the lethal Hendra and Nipah viruses are both members of the same family.

We’ll have to wait for more information to determine if the science in the film is credible. I do know that a prominent virologist, for whom I have a great deal of respect, has been hired as a script consultant. Whether or not the director and writer actually listen to that virologist is another question.

Moviegoers may know about the eponymous 2001 sci-fi movie (pictured) in which a group of terrorists concocted a seemingly unstoppable strain of Ebola. The first target is the President of the United States. Scientific reality just isn’t exciting enough for the movies.