George Returns to TV!

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This is exciting news! I've been hoping to see George do a limited series for a while.  Hopefully this will land somewhere like HBO, Netflix, or Amazon and do well.


[size=48]George Clooney to Star in 'Catch-22' Adaptation From Paramount TV (Exclusive)[/size]
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The two-time Oscar winner will also direct the six-episode limited series, written by Luke Davies ('Lion') and David Michod ('War Machine').

George Clooney is returning to the small screen.

The Oscar winner and Emmy nominee for his time on ER is set to star and direct a limited series based on the seminal Joseph Heller novel Catch-22.

The six-episode series, produced by Paramount Television and Anonymous Content, does not yet have a network. The package — co-written by Luke Davies (Lion) and David Michod (War Machine) will be shopped in December. With a proven star in Clooney, it's expected to land a sizable fee at a deep-pocketed outlet.

Catch-22— originally adapted into a feature film in 1970 from Paramount Pictures and directed by Mike Nichols and starring Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin and Bob Newhart. Richard Dreyfuss later starred in an ABC half-hour pilot produced by Paramount Television in 1973 that never went forward.

Catch-22 is set in Italy during World War II and tells the story of Yossarian, a U.S. Air Force bombardier trying to fulfill his service requirements so he can go home. The novel explored the paradox of requirements where airmen who felt mentally unfit to fly were not obligated to do so, but anyone who applied to stop flying was sane enough to fly, creating the catch-22 of its title.



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Clooney will play Col. Cathcart, the role initially played by Balsam in the Nichols feature. Clooney and his Smokehouse Pictures producing partner Grant Heslov (Good Night, and Good Luck, Argo, The Ides of March) will direct and exec produce. The episodes were co-written by Davies and Michôd, who will also executive produce. Anonymous Content's Richard Brown and Steve Golin are also on bard as EPs.

Catch-22 will mark Clooney's return to the small-screen following his Emmy-nominated turn on NBC's ER. His TV credits include Memphis Beat, Roseanne, Sisters and The Facts of Life. On the big-screen, Clooney's work includes an Oscar win for his supporting turn in Syriana and as part of the cast of best picture winner Argo. He was nominated for writing Good Night, and Good Luck and scored lead actor nominations for The Descendants, Up in the Air and Michael Clayton. His directing credits include Suburbicon, which he also wrote and produced; The Monuments Men, The Ides of March, Leatherheads, Good Night, and Good Luck and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He and Heslov are repped by CAA.

Catch-22 with Clooney attached represents a coup for Paramount Television. The company is also behind Netflix's 13 Reasons Why and upcoming Emma Stone and Jonah Hill starrer Maniac from director Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) and TNT's forthcoming The Alienist. Paramount TV also recently announced development on Girls Code, a female-driven tech comedy set up at Freeform with Paul Feig attached to direct.

The collaboration between Paramount TV and Anonymous Content has produced four shows: 13 Reasons Why, Epix's Berlin Station, The Alienist and Maniac. Anonymous Content, which is also behind USA Network's Mr. Robot, Netflix's The O.A., recently extended its first-look deal with Paramount Television through 2019.



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Anonymous Content Extends Paramount TV First-Look Deal Through 2019

Clooney becomes the latest A-lister to move to television. Jennifer Aniston is set to star opposite Reese Witherspoon in a morning news show drama that landed at Apple with a two-season order. Julia Roberts also signed on to star in Sam Esmail's take on popular podcast Homecoming, which landed at Amazon with a two-season pickup.

Thanks for the find Missa! That is good news. Im so glad he plans on starring in it too. Good for him ... and us. After his comments about not planning on acting much in the future this is a pleasant surprise.

Sounds great and like a really interesting subject!
Interesting that he plays the role his ex-father-in-law had played before...

Brilliant!

........so filming in Italy?............

NICE!! I'm really glad he's decided to come back to tv. Going to the movies has become so expensive and his movies are sometimes really hard to find. At least on tv it will be easier to find him.

I wonder why they decided to reboot "Catch 22". Maybe it's because that's how we seem to be living today. I hope they do a good job on this series and it entices George into doing more television.

Bit of background here......

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[size=48]How George Clooney's 'Catch-22' Love Brought Him Back to TV[/size]
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Getty Images (Clooney)



Paramount Television, Anonymous Content and CAA made it happen.

When Amy Powell relaunched Paramount Television four years ago, the executive selected a handful of books that she hoped to mine for the studio. Among them: Joseph Heller's seminal novel Catch-22, which as Powell would find out later, happened to be George Clooney's favorite book.

Flash-forward four years and Paramount TV is shopping a six-episode limited series based on the World War II novel with the Oscar winner attached to star and direct. The package is being taken out in December to ad-free outlets like Apple and HBO, with Powell already fielding calls from all of the SVOD platforms, among others.

In order for Catch-22 to become a finally become a reality, Powell brought in Richard Brown and Steve Golin of Anonymous Content — with whom Paramount TV has an overall deal — to find the perfect writers. Golin and Brown brought writers Luke Davies (Lion) and David Michod (War Machine) to Powell and a year later, the duo pitched what the Paramount TV president described as a "thoughtful take" on the material. Not long after, Clooney's CAA agent Bryan Lourd and co-head of TV Joe Cohen called Powell with the news that Clooney loved the book and wanted to meet.



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George Clooney to Star in 'Catch-22' Adaptation From Paramount TV (Exclusive)

Powell sent all six scripts to Clooney and his producing partner Grant Heslov. They read them overnight. That led to a lunch with Powell, Heslov and Clooney in which the latter asked if he could play Col. Cathcart in what would be his return to TV decades after NBC's ER. "He had incredible instincts on the material," Powell recalls. "He talked about how he wanted to direct, what locations could be used and how he wanted to cast fresh faces to play the show's young soldiers. It was a love fest."  

Paramount TV and Clooney's plan is to make Catch-22 a global story and shoot on location in a bid to be as accurate as possible. Producers also want to use one of the handful of surviving World War II planes. (Davies and Michod went for a flight in one of them as research.)

As for the price tag, Powell suggested Clooney would be earning more per-episode than the eye-popping $500,000 per hour Kevin Costner is earning for Paramount Network's Yellowstone. "He's very A-plus talent," Powell says of Clooney with a laugh.

Catch-22 marks the first TV role for Clooney, who will also co-direct all six episodes with Heslov, in more than a decade after his Emmy-nominated turn on NBC's ER.

Next up for Paramount TV, the studio behind controversial watercooler hit 13 Reasons Why is Netflix comedy Maniac, starring Emma Stone, Jonah Hill and Justin Theroux from Emmy-winning True Detective director Cary Fukunaga and shopping Anne Rice's famed The Vampire Chronicles, which will be taken out in the new year.

Looking forward to this! Hopefully this series could be shot soon. Sounds like an interesting topic though I haven't read the book yet.

Prep for this project might be one of the reasons G&A are back in England. That and the fire conditions in California. Since this has an early 2018 start date I'm assuming the Watergate project won't get done until this is finished. I hope it isn't too long before they can get started on that because it has so much relevance to today's events.

Yaaa back on the bus....

Could be that they're in New York.

Mail feature about David Letterman's new interview series for Netflix which is being recorded there now.

Letterman, and Emily Blunt and John Krasinski were seen leaving the studio, as was Malala Yousafzai........

PAN - I don't think they are here...Maybe he is (or was) on his own for the interview, but why would they fly to the UK and then come back here a week later? Why not just come here in the first place? That's a lot of air time for a couple of infants.

That's true, Lizzy. But I'm not sure we know they haven't been there enroute to London,'cos presumably the new apartment is  complete if not almost, in which case that's a break in the flight for the twins. Not sure why we're sure they're in the UK now, tho it wouldn't surprise me............

PAN - Didn't the article about the headphones say they were on a flight to the UK?

LizzyNY wrote:Prep for this project might be one of the reasons G&A are back in England. That and the fire conditions in California. Since this has an early 2018 start date I'm assuming the Watergate project won't get done until this is finished. I hope it isn't too long before they can get started on that because it has so much relevance to today's events.

Lizzy I'm not sure that Watergate project has got its screenplay finished.

Sevens - I don't know the status of the Watergate project. I suspect the screenplay is at least being worked on, or they wouldn't have started talking about it yet.

I don't think George wants to wait too long to get this project finished. He knows how relevant it is to what's going on today and wants to remind everyone what grounds for impeachment look like - and he knows it will annoy Trump. I just hope they don't rush it so much that it isn't done well.