Steven Soderbergh directed and Stephen Gaghan wrote Traffic, a 2000 American crime drama film. It looks at the illegal drug trade from the viewpoints of users, enforcers, politicians, and traffickers. Although some of the characters do not meet, their stories are edited together throughout the movie.
The picture is based on the British television series Traffik, which aired on Channel 4 in 1989. Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Douglas, Erika Christensen, Luis Guzmán, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jacob Vargas, Tomas Milian, Topher Grace, James Brolin, Steven Bauer, and Benjamin Bratt are among the film’s international ensemble cast. It includes speech in both English and Spanish.
The movie’s original funders, 20th Century Fox, insisted on Harrison Ford playing a prominent role and extensive revisions to the screenplay. Soderbergh refused and sent the script to other major Hollywood studios, but it was turned down due to the three-hour running duration and the subject matter (Traffic is more political than usual Hollywood films).
USA Films, on the other hand, was immediately interested in the proposal and offered the producers more money than Fox. Soderbergh operated the camera personally and assigned each scenario a separate color grade so that viewers could distinguish between them.
Steven Soderbergh won Best Director, Benicio del Toro won Best Supporting Actor, Stephen Gaghan won Best Adapted Screenplay, and Stephen Mirrione won Best Film Editing. It was also a commercial triumph, grossing $207.5 million worldwide, well above its original budget of $46 million.
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