The "Times" said that audiences may be turned off by Participant's relentless focus on upsetting issues, quoting unnamed sources. The company hoped that it would change this attitude about its films (and make money) with 2011's "The Help" (about racial reconciliation in the American South during the 1960s) and "Contagion" (a Steven Soderbergh picture about the outbreak of a virulent, deadly disease). Skoll also said that Participant had purchased the rights to a "New York Times" article about the "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill of 2010, and that the film would likely focus not simply on oil drilling but on a number of critical issues (such as climate change and the ecological health of oceans).