Yahoo News George Clooney returning to TV 20 years after ER
George Clooney is the latest Hollywood A-lister coming to TV for a high-profile series.
20 years after his breakthrough role in groundbreaking US medical drama ER, Clooney is adapting author Joseph Heller's 1961 satire of the US army, Catch-22, for Paramount Television (via Deadline).
Clooney is attached to star in Catch-22 as the conniving US army colonel Cathcart, who raised the ire of his troops at the height of World War II by increasing the number of dangerous missions for combat pilots.
Cathcart is behind a ridiculous Catch-22 rule, which disqualifies any pilots for service if they're willing to undertake knowingly deadly missions. But, the same rule says that any pilot who actually recognises the danger of such flights and asks to be dismissed is actually of sound mind, and thus fit for service. So, everyone's basically screwed...
The 56-year-old two-time Academy Award winner will also direct all six episodes of this series, in collaboration with his long-time producing partner Grant Heslov.
Catch-22 was previously adapted into a cult classic 1970 comedy by iconic filmmaker Mike Nichols, starring Alan Arkin, Richard Benjamin and Art Garfunkel.
Clooney is the latest Hollywood superstar to be turning to TV. Of course, Reese Witherspoon struck gold by producing an adaptation of Liane Moriarty's novel Big Little Lies earlier this year.
Big Little Lies was originally commissioned as a one-off by HBO, but its eight Primetime Emmy Award wins have facilitated development on a second season. Witherspoon is also working on a separate limited series with Jennifer Aniston for Apple.
Clooney's Ocean's Eleven co-star Julia Roberts recently got a two-season commission from Amazon Prime Video for the conspiracy thriller Homecoming, which is written by Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail.
Netflix has had plenty of success nabbing big stars as well, most recently attaching Oscar winner Emma Stone and Jonah Hill for True Detective director Cary Fukunaga's trippy Maniac.
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