In the planning stage for some time, George Clooney is finally set to direct Suburbicon, an original script by Joel and Ethan Coen that the two-time Academy Award winner has been eyeing for more than a decade. According to Deadline, Suburbicon is being set up at Sony’s TriStar Pictures.
Today’s reports refer to Suburbicon as “a noir drama in the vein of the Coens’ breakout film ‘Blood Simple.’” Little is known about the specific plot, although Suburbicon is said to be set in the 1950s and, assuming his plans haven’t changed, Clooney will also play a part in the film.
Beware of spoilers reading forward, however, as Clooney revealed his Suburbicon character’s fate during a 2008 interview with MTV.
“There’s nothing to explain what it is except that it’s a Coen brothers film,” said Clooney who, at the time, thought that the sibling pair would direct. “So it’s insane. I get clubbed to death with a tire iron. It made me laugh.”
Clooney has worked with the Coens on several feature films, beginning with 2000’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? and continuing through 2003’s Intolerable Cruelty and 2008’s Burn After Reading. He’s also part of the ensemble cast of the Coen’s latest, the similarly long-gestating Hail, Caesar! Also set to star Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Hail, Caesar! hits the big screen February 5, 2016.
As a director, Clooney most recently helmed the 2014 World War II drama The Monuments Men. As an actor, he was recently seen in Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland. Clooney’s next big screen release is as a producer. His Smoke House Pictures produced next week’s Our Brand is Crisis, directed by David Gordon Green and starring Sandra Bullock.
