George Clooney: 'Hollywood is no longer making the type of films I want to star in'

George Clooney has said Hollywood film studios are no longer making the type of films that he wants to star in and create.

The award-winning actor and producer said that streaming platforms automatically take precedence for him now.

“The other thing is sort of with this weird balance the studios are less and less making the kinds of stories I like to tell, mid-range or even small budget,” Clooney, 58, told the Hollywood Reporter's podcast.

“So it’s gonna end up at Hulu or Netflix or Amazon or Apple. The streaming services have really blown the hinges off, watch the first season of Narcos and tell me there's anything you've seen better.”

He was speaking ahead of the airing of Catch-22, his television adaptation of the Joseph Heller novel which follows protagonist Captain John Yossarian on his quest to stay alive and venture home from Italy, where he is stationed as part of the B-25 bombing missions in World War II.

The six-part series was originally released on the American service, Hulu on Friday. It comes to the UK on Channel 4 later this year.

Beaming from the flexibility handed to him and his co-creator Grant Heslov, Clooney praised online streaming sites for taking the lead and indulging in unconventional narratives.

"A lot of the type of stories I like to tell don't involve superheroes, so it's not such a bad thing to tell these stories on streaming services,” the film-maker added. Clooney stars as Scheisskopf in the series but he has taken an executive role as producer and director as well, alongside Heslov, who also appears on screen as Doc Daneeka.

Joining the director duo was Ellen Kuras.

Clooney admitted that they brought her in to update the masculine-dominated story through the female gaze.

“It takes place in 1944 and it’s a bunch of guys, but we thought this should have a modern take, not changing the material but changing the point of view.”

But their project is not the first transformation of the book for the screen and it follows a feature-length adaptation by Mike Nicholls starring Alan Arkin.

Heller had sold the film rights to Columbia Pictures for $100,000, in 1962.

Referring Nicholls’ 1970 film adaptation of the original book, Clooney said: “The beauty of this one, is that this is a tough nut to crack, famously one of the toughest nuts ever to crack, and it couldn’t be done in a two-hour movie.”

Instead, he said, the episodic format lends itself to the novel.

“In six episodes, you can get to know the characters. If you get to know the character, when they die it really matters, and only can you do that on a streaming service, he added.