Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney have been really great collaborators, as director-actor alone we have the likes of the enjoyable Ocean’s Eleven, the effortlessly cool Out of Sight and the underrated Solaris remake. And as producing partners they’ve brought many diverse and fascinating projects to fruition: A Scanner Darkly, Far From Heaven and Insomnia to name a few.
With Soderbergh reporting he will be bowing out of the directing game, there was one more space for the two to unite again, with Clooney being directed by Soderbergh one last time. It is not, however, to be.
One of Soderbergh’s swan songs was to be a big screen remake of the 1960’s TV show The Man From UNCLE, with George Clooney attached to star in the lead role. Now Deadline is reporting that Clooney is in the process of withdrawing from the film, there is no word yet on why this has come about.
The film was expected to start shooting in February 2012, by which time the Oscar trail for The Ides of March would have been over and other than Gravity, which has already wrapped, Clooney has no other projects.
So his decision is mysterious to say the least. This is a studio project so a replacement will soon follow as Warner Bros won’t want to keep the long gestating project waiting any longer.
The script for the film has been written by Scott Z. Burns, who has also penned the upcoming Contagion for Soderbergh which is out on September 9th.
Clooney will next be seen in The Ides of March, which he has written and directed, as well as Alexander Payne‘s The Descendants.
