Director Edward Berger Announces He Turned Down Offer To Direct Fourth ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ Movie

A potential director for a new entry in the Ocean’s Eleven series revealed that he has turned down the project, Collider reports.

A remake of the 1960 film of the same name, starring Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, the 2001 Ocean’s Eleven, directed by Steven Soderbergh, follows a group of conmen who pull off a heist to steal millions of dollars from multiple casinos in one night. A financial and critical success, the caper film would spawn two sequels and a spin-off, Ocean’s Eight, starring Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett.

According to cast member Don Cheadle, discussions about a fourth film had been underway soon after the release of Ocean’s Thirteen, but were quickly put to rest following the deaths of cast members Bernie Mac and Carl Reiner. That is, until Soderbergh told him he had thought of a way to do a new entry.

Series star George Clooney later confirmed this, saying,

We have a really good script for another Ocean’s now, so we may end up doing another one.

Further developments were reported last year when Clooney and fellow star Brad Pitt approached director Edward Berger, who won the Academy Award for Best International Film for All Quiet On The Western Front, about helming the project.

But now Berger has announced he has since stepped away from the sequel, saying:

We were talking at that time…and I…was…seduced by the thought of making something like that… But deep down inside, I knew it’s not my movie, it’s Steven Soderbergh’s movie. He invented that, beautifully. He made them, and I’m just following in his footsteps. What is new for me?

Berger’s departure potentially leaves the director’s chair open for David Leitch, Pitt’s collaborator on Bullet Train, who was in early talks with Warner Bros. and Clooney’s production company, Smokehouse Pictures, back in January, but no further details have been confirmed as of this writing.