George Clooney returns to scripted television in a take on Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22. Recreated by Luke Davies and David Michôd, the story follows Yossarian, played by Christopher Abbott, who is a part of the U.S. Air Force. The story takes place during World War II at a time full of turmoil.
Hulu released the trailer on April 24th, and bookworms will be pleasantly surprised how closely the trailer follows the original novel. In the novel, “Catch-22” is a rule in the military in which one must be considered crazy in order to be discharged from the military and sent home. However, one must request to be sent home. The catch comes in the fact that one is not considered crazy if one admits to being crazy, because an insane person would never realize that they were crazy. As the trailer shows, Yossarian asks the medic “Doc, you can ground me if I’m crazy, right? Then ground me, I’m crazy,” to which the medic responds, “As soon as you ask to get out of combat duty, you’re no longer crazy and so you have to fly more missions.” Just as in the novel, Yossarian is upset at the fact that people he doesn’t know want to kill him. As he states both in the novel and in the trailer, “I’ve flown more missions than anybody on this base and any time I get close, they raise it on me. I can’t do this anymore.”
Besides Christopher Abbott, the rest of the cast includes Kyle Chandler (Colonel Cathcart), George Clooney (Scheisskopf), Hugh Laurie (Major de Coverley), and Grant Heslov (Doc Daneeka) among others. The limited series will be executive produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov. Clooney, Heslove and Ellen Kuras, who are also producers of the series, have each directed two episodes from the series for a total of six parts.
This story was originally reported by Deadline.