Speaking in Venice this weekend, Steven Soderbergh has revealed when he will be shooting his next three projects.

Soderbergh (who was speaking at a packed press conference for his new feature Contagion) is facing a year that promises to be frantically busy.

The prolific US director said he would be starting to shoot his male stripper movie Magic Mike “next week.” Next will come The Man From Uncle in February 2012 and, finally, his long gestating Liberace project next June.

“Those are varying scales. The male stripper movie is smallish. The Man From Uncle is a little larger but not crazy, crazy big and Liberace is kind of in the middle,” Soderbergh said of his plans to shoot three films in
under 12 months.

Contagion is a drama set during an outbreak of a virus far more virulent that Bird Flu or Swine Flu. In the film, Gwyneth Paltrow’s character (an adulterous wife) is responsible for bringing the disease into America.

Sitting alongside Soderbergh, Paltrow joked that audiences shouldn’t blame her character for cheating on her husband (played by Matt Damon).

“I think that if death by violence was a punishment for extra-marital affairs, there would only be about three dudes left in this room right now,” the actress and singer told the assembled media. “Maybe less…we are in Italy!”

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