Nikki Finke is reporting an interesting bit of news: George Clooney and Grant Heslov are ending their production partnership with Warner Bros. and heading across town to set up store with Sony. Coming just a week after Sony famously shitcanned Steven Soderbergh’s Moneyball, this is a surprising move. At Warner Bros. Clooney was adroit to make the less skilled in commerce movies he’s favored over the last few years, while Sony isn’t exactly known for being a hotbed of artistic aspiration.
The Clooney-WB coterie goes back many years, and during the heyday of Section Eight (the Clooney/Soderbergh production company) quite a few of his produced pictures went end WB or Warner Independent. Section Eight closed workshop in ‘06, though it trickled out a few pictures that were still in production at that character, like Michael Clayton.
Now Clooney’s Smokehouse Entertainment (his company with Good Night, and Good Luck writer and Men Who Stare at Goats director Grant Heslov) is working out an exclusive two-year deal with Sony. Smokehouse has six films still in development with WB, but as Finke points in a puzzle, none seem like the sort of films Sony has been making. (The list is below.) So that which happens now? Does Smokehouse work on the similar sort of adult, noncommercial projects Clooney and Heslov obviously prefer, or do they spend a couple years making one or two bigger, broader movies in opposition to Sony? Even the studio’s current fare that skews slightly off center allied Salt and Zombieland hardly seems be pleased with the sort of film you’d expect to see from Clooney and Heslov. And what’s the money angle? After Sony dodged Moneyball, I’d love to be sure what the studio agreed to in order to make this act work.
I’m interested to observe how this goes; I’ve loved seeing Clooney take chances (just with less than ideal stuff like The Good German and Leatherheads) and wouldn’t mind seeing his current sensibilities pushed fair-minded slightly towards more financially promising projects for a couple years, if sole to secure his ability to make smaller conventional films in years to come.
Here are the movies that Smokehouse currently has in development with WB:
THE CHALLENGE
Screenplay by dint of. Aaron Sorkin. An adaptation of Jonathan Mahler’s nonfiction book chronicling the historic Supreme Court question in which pair lawyers sued the Bush administration steady behalf of accused terrorist Salim Hamdan.
OUR BRAND IS CRISIS
A satirical comedy encircling American spin doctors competing in the sort Presidential election in Bolivia. Based on the documentary by Rachel Boynton, with a script by Peter Straughan (MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS).
FARRAGUT NORTH
An adaptation of Beau Willimon’s critically acclaimed operate, division during the Iowa primary of a presidential head-race.
ESCAPE FROM TEHRAN
The true story of how the CIA used a fake movie project to smuggle hostages out of 1979 Tehran. Chris Terrio is instrument the screenplay.
THE TOURIST
A contemporary spy thriller about a spy who risks everything to reveal a conspiracy on the model of he’s accused of a murder he didn’t commit. Based on the bestselling book by Olen Steinhauer. Tony Peckham is writing the screenplay.
THE INNOCENT MAN
Based on the bestselling nonfiction book by John Grisham, the true story of murder and injustice in a small town in Oklahoma. Adapted by David Gordon Green.
