Those stories about legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow that George Clooney heard from his father continue to inspire the Academy Award winning actor and producer.
Clooney and longtime film partner Grant Heslov (The Ides of March; The Monuments Men) are working with AMC to develop a TV series from Good Night, and Good Luck,Clooney's 2005 Oscar-nominated film about Murrow's 1950s takedown of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who stoked paranoia with claims that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government.
Emmy-winner Jonathan Glatzer (Better Call Saul; Succession), who will be the TV series' showrunner, plans to focus on "the newsmen and women who worked alongside Edward R. Murrow amid a post-war climate of fear and hysteria," AMC announced in a media release.
The TV version of Good Night, and Good Luck will be different from the film, which garnered six Academy Award nominations for best picture, lead actor (David Strathairn as Murrow), directing (Clooney), original screenplay (Clooney and Heslov), cinematography and art direction. The movie centered on Murrow, CBS' legendary World War II correspondent and See It Now TV host, and his producer, CBS News executive Fred Friendly.
It also starred Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Alex Bornstein and Rose Abdoo.
The series will be told through a young See It Now cameraman named Sy Steingartner, "who is forced to juggle his admiration for Murrow with his own ambition. With the CBS brass pushing an anti-Communist Loyalty Oath on Murrow and his staff, Sy has an opportunity to rise straight to the top, but only by betraying his mentor in the process. With wit and keen observation, the series confronts how we respond to chaos and the values that pull us through," AMC says.
However, a TV series is not a sure thing despite the involvement of the production partners on the 2005 black-and-white feature film: Clooney and Heslov’s Smokehouse Pictures; 2929 Productions (executive producers Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner); and Participant (executive producer Jeff Skoll).
AMC has "opened a writers' room to develop a serial version of Good Night, and Good Luck for AMC and AMC+," according to the media release. "The project will be developed under AMC Networks’ 'scripts-to-series' model, which opens writers’ rooms to develop prospective series that, in success, move straight-to-series … In the event of a series order, AMC Studios would produce the six-episode series with Smokehouse, Participant and 2929 Productions. AMC Networks holds worldwide exclusive rights to the series," the release says.
Why now?
"Good Night, and Good Luck and the pressures faced by the men and women of the Murrow newsroom are more timely now than ever," said Wagner, CEO of 2929 Entertainment, in the AMC release.
The film's themes "remain frighteningly relevant today, as new threats to democracy arise and trust in the press continues to erode," said Participant’s CEO David Linde in the announcement.
Telling Murrow's story has been a passion project for Clooney. His father, Nick Clooney, started his career as a radio newsman at WFTM-AM in Maysville while in high school in the early 1950s, at the height of Murrow's popularity.
George, after achieving stardom on NBC's ER in the 1990s, often told me about wanting to do a film called Murrow & Me about Murrow, whom his father often talked about when George was growing up in Mason, Ohio, and Augusta, Ky.
Clooney currently is appearing in Ticket To Paradise,a romantic comedy with Julia Roberts which opened in theaters Oct. 23.
On Dec. 4, Clooney will be among the 45th annual Kennedy Center Honorees taping in Washington, D.C. The special will air on CBS the last week of December.
His next big screen project is Boys On The Boat, currently in post-production at MGM. Clooney directed the film, and produced with Heslov, based on the book Daniel James Brown about the University of Washington rowing team which won gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Clooney and Heslov are also producing a documentary for HBO and HBO Max aboutallegations by hundreds of former Ohio State University male student athletesthat they were sexually abused by team doctor Dr. Richard Strauss from 1978 to 1998.
