If George Clooney's career as a director has shown us anything, it's that he's a man who is up on the major issues of the times. Good Night and Good Luck arrived just as we were starting to take a harder look at the dramatic shift in the news media, where the old stalwarts were being replaced by incompetent blowhards. Last year he brought us The Ides of March, a taut political thriller set during a messy campaign season. He's right on the ball again, with Deadline reporting he's set to direct a film based on an article published in The New Yorker just last week.
Clooney will produce and direct The Yankee Comandante, based on David Grann's true story about William Alexander Morgan, an American who in 1959 aided Fidel Castro and the Cuban rebels in the overthrow of then President Fulgencio Batista. Morgan's motives were always murky at best, and although he was elevated to the title of Comandante in Castro's army, he was still held in high suspicion. He was eventually accused of being a spy, and Castro sentenced him to death by firing squad.
It's an interesting story, to say the least, as Morgan fought alongside Che Guevara and was the subject of much confusion to the American government. This is still pretty early on in the process, as we don't know if Clooney and his producing/writing partner, Grant Heslov, will take a crack at the script. Clooney will be seen next in Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron's upcoming sci-fi film.
